The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 42: The Midseason Awards

Episode Date: December 24, 2015

With the NHL in the midst of its Christmas break, we decided to use this newfound free time to go through our awards ballot (roughly) midway through the 2015-16 schedule. Can 'The Stars Guys' combine for one vote in the Hart Trophy race? Can anyone even make a legitimate case for stealing the awards that Erik Karlsson and Patrice Bergeron respectively won last year? And if you're a coach, do you even want to win the Jack Adams at this point? 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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Travis, what's going on, man? We just had our first botched start to a podcast. It only took like 35 episodes. I'm pretty impressed. It took that long. 41, actually. Sorry, I lost track. No, that was good.

We only did a minute or so. It was comedic gold. I mean, the listeners are really missing out. I think it was their best open ever, but... Yeah, we were just trashed and Jeff Merrick's hosting ability. That's going to be on the... The uncut end of season one blooper reel. Fair enough.

So let's just jump right into it. We're going to do a mid-season awards type of show because there's nothing else really going on in the league worthwhile. And we're nearly halfway through the year. I mean, I think we're like 45 or so percent of the way through. So I don't know. Let's just start from the bottom and we'll go over the kind of main candidates and who we think will or should win the awards based on what we've seen so far. And, uh, and see if we had, we differ in opinions. I'm sure we're going to have at least some where we're going to kind of get at each of those throws about it. Yeah. And to be truthful,

I mean, anything could be better. The, the alternative would be world juniors talk. And I mean, there's basically anything is better than world juniors talk. So I feel like no matter what the situation is, we've made the right decision to go award preview. So I don't know which, which one do you want to start here. Well, okay, let's, first off, let's not do ones like the Masterden or the Lady Bing or the Jennings. I was going to start the lady Bing. Just, I don't know, sort by whoever has the least penalty minutes and just go with that guy. Like, I don't know.

Like, it's such a silly award. It's like, have you ever read the description? It's like the, like the most gentlemanly sportsman like, member, like player. Like, what does that even mean? Like, no, I feel like, I feel like we should either, obviously we should start from the top to me because I feel like two of these, at least two of these are going to take. Some hashing out. So, I mean, let's just start with the heart because I think that's going to take. I mean, so in your heart, should we go, let's go top two or three at least.

Okay. What would you have in the heart race right now? I think that we're on the same, we've talked about it was in the show before, where I think that Eric Carlson has to be in discussion just purely based on, I don't know if it's like right or wrong, because it's always a tricky balance. Like you don't want to punish guys in these awards for playing on a good team and playing with good players. But like,

and you also don't want to reward a guy just for playing with complete trash. But like when you look at the guys that play with Eric Carlson, particularly like if he went down and you look at the rest of that blue line, it's just like it's an abomination. I mean, like they could literally put me and you on the second pairing behind whoever is playing with Eric Carlson and we'd be just as competent as those guys. I think that you kind of have to take that approach in this regard. Yeah, I think a similar argument, it's not really the same vein, but I feel like Taylor Hall also has to be in this conversation because, you know, I've been jumping up and down

for years about Taylor Hall and just how dominant he's been for real years. And it seems like whatever that teams went through real losing stretches and there have been a lot of them, there was this period of time where no matter what would happen. And I guess we see this in every market because I just read a post. today saying, I think it was in the post actually, the New York Post, saying that Sidney Crosby was a coach killer. So I feel like if Crosby can get it, anyone can get it. But, you know, it's always Taylor Hall's fault. There's always Crosby's fault. There's always Carlson's fault. And it's like, no, it's not. It's usually never these guys fault. But the Taylor Hall thing is

interesting because you're finally starting to see a semblance of a competitive Edmonton team. And I think it's largely driven by the fact that that line, that Taylor Hall line, obviously Leon Dreisal has been a big factor there too, but Taylor Hall has just been basically unguardable for the first half of the season. And, you know, again, this is a situation where it's an extremely good player, not on a very good team. But I think we have to recognize these types of players like Hall and Carlson, because we are going to also recognize Patrick Kane, and we're going to recognize the Dallas duo because they're equally dominant, but they play on significantly better teams. So I think that's where the

interesting debate comes in is how do you how do you power rank guys who are great on great teams versus great on terrible teams well there's no i think there's no way that either carlson or hall are going to get anywhere near the the love that is deserve in the in this voting at the end of the year right like there's no way either those guys is even like top five i feel like you're going to have guys like tavares and stuff like just randomly based on on a player name recognition that wind up higher in the in the voting because because just that's the way it is so i actually i agree with with you about Taylor Hall, which, and I'll be honest, I think I would vote Hall over Carlson right now. It'd be close, but I will say this, I feel like the Eric Carlson thing, and I agree with

your point generally, that these guys aren't going to factor in the top two or whatever, but I feel like Eric Carlson could be Dark Horse top three candidate, so long as this first half of the season replicates itself in the second half of the season. I actually wrote about him and that team, tomorrow and not to go off on a tangent here, but it is criminal. How that team, that team has essentially done nothing to build around him for seven years now. And like, I don't know, it seems like it's getting even more extreme. Like, he's getting better and the team around him is getting worse. And it seems like it snowballed for like five consecutive years.

I do think that there's so much buzz about him right now and just the mere fact that they're still live in the playoff race is unbelievable. They've been, I believe they've been outshot more than any team in the league by shots on goal at this point in the year. I don't know. I feel like if there was one guy, a breakthrough guy on like an eight seed team that could get in the heart race, it'd be him. But honestly, I think it's really going to come down to Patrick Kane. I think it's going to come down to the Dallas duo.

I just wonder about them cannibalizing each other's votes. Yeah, I honestly would not know how to differentiate between Bitt. Well, how do you? Sagan and Ben, right? It's like, can we just vote them, can we just vote them as the Dallas guys? Like, can we just give the Dallas guys the vote? Like, it's so tough, right? Like, I honestly don't know which one is more valuable and which one, like, if one of

them went down, which one would do better without that guy around. Like, I just, I don't even know, honestly. I feel like we dealt with this similarly with, if I remember correctly, with the Calgary situation between Giordano and Brody a couple years ago. actually it might have been last year. We were dealing it for a period of time. It's like when two dominant players play together, it's just reality.

They're going to cannibalize votes because I can't, I'm not really sure how I would spin that vote. Like, Jamie Ben has been a great player in the league for years. Tyler Sagan's been a dominant player in the league for years. The two come together and they're unstoppable as a duo. I certainly think they make each other better. I would guess that if I had to vote for one of the two, I'd probably vote for Tyler Sagan, but it's not like some, I'm not like, wow, I feel really good about this because Jamie Benzman's such a huge driver for that duo of success. And ultimately what's going to come down to is who is not, really the question is who is not going to vote for Patrick Kane. And that's a real question because the all-fice stuff is very real. And I am almost certain that there will be some people who will not vote for.

him because of that. Fair or not, but strictly on ice performance, I think he's been the best player in the league. I think that's a fair statement to make. So I don't know. I think Dallas kind of screws themselves in this race. I don't think they care much at all about the individual heart trophy, but I just, I feel like it's going to be Patrick Kane. And I feel like there's going to be a lot of think pieces written about this because, honestly,

the best thing the NFL could have is someone really step up and challenge him for it. I just don't know that anyone really can catch him at this point. The first half of the season, his point streak was so ridiculous. It was, you watch every single game, and he would have a point bite in middle of the second period. It was kind of ridiculous for, felt like a month and a half there. Yeah. Well, it's going to be, it's me hilarious if the two Dallas guys split the Rocket Richard and the Art Ross, and then we have to figure out which one of them is deserving of the heart.

and how we approach that. I don't know. I think those three guys are definitely kind of head and shoulders above everyone else. And then you kind of get into the Taylor Hall, Eric Carlson. Like, I think that's a pretty good top five. I'm pretty happy with that. Yeah. So if you had a dark horse, like a guy, like a guy who would be a guy who you would feel

good voting in like seventh, even though he would never get any hard discussion in the blogosphere. Who is that guy? Like, who is the guy that's been really, really good? You know he has zero chance at a hard trophy. but you just feel like he's worthy of some six or seventh place vote. I mean, he doesn't, okay, this guy's not going to have the counting numbers and he's not like as, as kind of overwhelmingly.

We're going to say the same guy. We're going to say the same guy. Go ahead. I don't know if we will. But, okay, for me, it would be like, I think that Pavel Datsuk would be on that radar just purely based on it. And I don't know, you know, we've talked about this on the show where I don't think, I don't know how much we can attribute to his absence being the real.

reason for why the Red Wings looked so bad at the start of the year. I'm sure there was a little bit of an adjustment period there under Blaschil and maybe it would have evened itself out over the course of the year even without Datsuk in the lineup. But like how they've looked since he came back and just the overall like value he's brought to their underlying numbers. I mean, like they were one of the worst teams in the league through the first couple weeks and and suddenly they're back to being the the Red Wings we knew under Mike Babcock and it seems like they haven't really missed the beat. And obviously their goaltending helps a lot in that regard and they have depth up front. But like he just means so much, like purely based on the most valuable player.

Like I, there's very few guys that mean more to their team than he does. And I think that would be sort of like an off the radar one for me. So this is way, way off the radar. This is like 11th place vote. But I would, I would hate not to mention that Miko Kovu for when he's played has been extremely good for Minnesota, like insanely good. Which is surprising, right? Because I honestly felt like. We'd definitely seen his past, like, best days past him. Like, I feel like he had to kind of turn that corner over the past couple years. His numbers, I was going through in the past couple days.

I'd watched Minnesota's game over the last weekend. And I was kind of looking at their numbers because I wanted to know if he was having as big of an impact as he has had in years past. Because we start, like you said, we've seen a couple seasons where his numbers dipped a little bit. But holy crap, dude. He's controlling, I think, like six. 62% of play this year or something absurd.

I can't. It feels like it hasn't really been talked about. And I think a lot of that is because Minnesota is just kind of floating in the middle of that division because you can't really go down and he can't really go up. And, you know, we both like Minnesota a lot. So it's no harm, no foul there. But I feel like it's kind of going under the radar how good he's been. And really how as good his line has been this season when they've been together.

So I'll just throw him like, you've done a really good job, hard vote. Maybe like an eighth place vote for him. Well, and I think two other guys that are sort of in a similar vein and you really couldn't go wrong. I feel like if they got this award, you wouldn't be like, oh, that's ridiculous just based on how good their teams are and how much they mean to them are, are Patrice Bergeron and Anzikopatar, right? Yeah.

They just do everything. Like, without those guys in the lineup, those teams would be screwed. And you can't, like, you can't overestimate how important they are just because, like, they do really do everything right like they're on the top power play they're in a top penalty kill they play the best guys at five-on-five they play the most like it just take those guys out of the lineup and it's all over for those teams so and i love those guys yeah and they're two of the five most talented players in the world you can also put that in that little bit but no but you know what it's i'm so glad you brought that up because if we would have not said that someone would have pointed out

what's your beef with copatar meanwhile this is like the jopopatra fan club i'm the president of that fan club right um it's it's almost like we're at the point where it goes without saying that those two are always automatic in the discussion no matter what. And by the way, they actually could pull more votes than we think. Yeah. Based on, I mean, LA is going to coast into the playoffs. Boston is white hot all of a sudden. Like, their numbers are okay, but they can't lose. And you know who's going to get credit for that. And they deserve it. Um, Copeton versus. I think that's fair. The interesting thing is like by the letter of the law, it's the most valuable player, not the most outstanding, right? So you could make the argument that both of those guys are definitely more

valuable to their team than either Ben or Sagan is. I think that's probably a pretty fair thing to say it, right? See, I think I don't want to say this. I just feel like for years and years and years, L.A. has, it's just the way L.A. system is set up, but, like, they're a second, third, and fourth line steamroll, just like their first line does. Their first line just does it a little better. Whereas in Boston, at least in the past couple of years, it's been get your clock,

Clean by Bergeron and then do your damage against the depth. So if you were talking about value to a team, Bergeron probably jumps ahead of Copatar, but it's like, I don't know. I never know what any of these awards are actually quoted on or for or what the criteria is. So I'm more than okay bringing both into the discussion. Yeah, all right, that's fair. Let's move on in our next award.

Let's do I don't know. Do I just go with the Norris, I guess? Oh, that's going to take two seconds, right? Yeah. Is there any discussion here? Carlson. Okay, let's go to the Vezna. That's good. How would you round out?

Let's do top five, maybe. Let's do a top five. So Carlson won. A gap the size of, I don't know, the Grand Canyon, then I would go. I have seven guys who I'd listen to an argument for in this list. Well, yeah, Sue Bon Doughty are definitely in that. I would probably even put them two, three. I think John Klingberg deserves some recognition.

This kind of gets into. good player on a great team, but I think he's played really well. You can't tell me that he's not a primary driver for that team's success. He might not be the number one reason, but his influence on the back end has definitely been a huge bonus to that team. Well, he's also like, sort of like just what makes that team kind of what it is, right, and what makes it so successful, what's so good, like his ability to do all that stuff from the back end. And I think that we can't kind of overestimate that importance. Like, I don't think that. I don't think that. a guy like Jason DeMeres, if you kind of give him the entire role that John Klingberg has,

is like just going to seamlessly make that transition. So I think Jason Demers would need a defibrillator. Yeah. How would you round out, I'm curious, how would you round out four through seven? So I feel like our top three would be the same. Yeah. Unless you. No, I'm cool with Klingberg as well, like in that four spot maybe.

But the next guys for me are Ryan Suter is having an amazing year. And I say that as someone who's been sort of skeptical about him in the past. Like, there's no doubt that he's been just like a workhorse. But I thought that sometimes that was conflated with him being incredibly valuable and useful. Just like, oh, he plays 29 minutes a night. And it's like, well, yeah, but he'd probably be more successful if he was playing like 25. By the way, I think I brought this up a year and a half, two years ago and caught a lot of flack for it.

I'm curious how much pushback I would get now. I think Minnesota got the better. defenseman of that pairing that used to exist in Nashville, right? I mean, is there anyone who thinks that Shea Weber is outplaying Ryan Suter this year or last year? I'm sure there definitely are. Is there a credible argument to it? Not really. Probably not. Yeah, Suter's been amazing. Like, all of his numbers have taken an uptick, and I think that he would be a very worthwhile sort of fourth or fifth guy there. And then other names that come to mind are, like, Victor Hedman is still having a fantastic year, even though Tampa Bay is just kind of,

coming along at a snail's pace and bufflin is look at his numbers and he just does everything remarkably well so i feel like those two guys need to get some love as well so victor headman is interesting in the sense that indisputably no question about it in my top 10 but how much and this is a question i go back and forth with um how much do we weigh team relative numbers here because i the It's almost like a parabola, right? Like the more your team relative numbers go up, the more you boost your team's performance, the more I'm inclined to think that you're an elite defenseman or elite skater or whatever the case may be. But eventually I feel like you reach a part where you start reaching diminishing returns.

And it's like, okay, if you're in that 11, 12, 13 point added range, it's like, how bad is your team? Because you know, you have a situation now where it's like, okay, you have this unbelievable influence. I can cede that, but is the number being, what's the word, propelled at least in some part by just the sheer terribleness of your depth. And that has been probably one of the strangest developments in Tampa Bay this year is that, one, they're just not very good, they're very average. Two, they are extremely reliant on that Victor had been pairing. And that's weird because, like, yeah, their blue line isn't great.

but they have decent parts, at least as you compare them relative to the rest of the league. And their forward group. Like, I love their forward group. I know they've been dealing with injuries quite a bit, but time is back to my point. Headman's relative numbers are off the charts. They're ridiculous. And you wonder, I mean, I don't think you have to wonder. I think it's fair to say that Tampa Bay's crappiness in their depth right now is driving part of that.

I don't ding headman at all for that, but I'm just curious how you weigh that because it feels like it's not proportionate. to what we see in basically any other situation. Yeah. No, I think that's well said. But he's definitely in that sort of range there with those guys and maybe like a Justin Falk or something to round it out. It's good. We've mentioned the golden age of defensemen and all those guys we just mentioned are really,

really, really good players. So it's a pretty fun time to be a hockey fan just in that regard. Can Duncan Keith get into this conversation even though we miss some time? I think he can. I think like what he's going to wind up probably with like in the 60s, games played. I think that's fine. He's also one of those guys where he just means so much to that team.

Like there's no one else on that blue line. There's some nice players there, but none of them can really do the stuff he does, and especially like in all facets of the game. And yeah, you don't need to convince me that Duncan Keith is worthwhile of a top 10 nomination. Fair enough. Where are we moving on to? Let's do the Besna. Yeah, this to me is a pretty straightforward one, barring some

collapsing, but I think it's going to go Henrik Lundquist 1. Beyond that. Whoa. Whoa. I have Braden Holby has a pretty clear number one right now. I have hope. All right, we have disagree with you. I have Brayn'Lupy 2. Yeah. Why do you hate Brayden Hopi so much? No, no, I can't stand Brayn'Hopi. Here's why, so let me lay out the Longquist argument and then you can, I already know what your argument is, so I think it's, I think it's going to be a fair point regardless. But The Lunkwist thing to me is fascinating because that team sucks.

They're just not good. And I don't know why because they so much strike me as a team that should be a lot better. Like we see bad teams with, you know, saved by goaltending. Like, look at that Colorado team a few years ago where Semyon for a while I'm off was just ridiculous. But the rest of the team was just so crappy. And you kind of sense that like this is what they are. They can get great goaltending, but they're just a bad team. But like the Rangers, you know, we've seen them in stretches where they're just this

great counter attacking team. They have this unbelievable speed on the wings on the outside. They can they match up well with certain teams and it's like oh and by the way they have the best goal tender in the world. This year it feels different because it just feels like they are just leaking scoring chances against and I know we're in a bit of it. We're in actually I shouldn't say a bit. We're in a huge Rangers dip right now. They are struggling of late and it's actually starting to come apart in goaltending from a goaltending perspective too because, you know, for basically two months, goaltending smoothed over this team's constant mistakes. And now we're starting to see the teams come apart of it. Even still, though, the mere fact that how many

points the Rangers have in the standings, how well Henrik Lunkus has played most of the year, I think he's got to be up there. I mean, the only thing I would say to your point, to your counterpoint, is Brayden Holby has just been so dominant. And I know we're not supposed to consider track record here, but it's impossible to ignore the fact that Brayden Holby's now been good for like, what, four years? Yeah, no, he's been, he's been amazing. And it's interesting, I definitely agree that Lunkwist has sort of, um, had a, had a tougher path so far early this season.

But like, what we've seen with, with the Capitals is that they have been kind of surrendering more shots, uh, per game recently. And, and the possession has gone down a little bit. And, and Holbe's workload has increased. then he's only gotten better and better. And it's scary to see how good he is behind that team and how good that team is overall, right? Like, I think that's what makes them pretty clearly,

like one of the top four or five teams in the league. And comparing Holpsey's numbers this year to carry prices last year are very similar. Like, they're definitely in the ballpark. And that's going to be kind of an interesting end of follow as the year goes along. Like, if Holby stays over a 9-30, say, percentage, it's going to be pretty impossible to take that award from him regardless of how valuable Lundquist is to his team.

I don't know. And here's why. I think Lunkwist will carry some of the vote purely based on track record. And again, I don't think that's the spirit of the award, but I just think if two guys say, man, voters say, man, Wunquist had a great year, hope he had a great year. The Wunquist, man, he's the most talented goalie I've seen. Vote Lundquist. Like, I think that's a real thing.

Well, keep in mind, some of the voters might legitimately look at wins and losses for goalies, and Holthby is probably going to blow them out of the water in that regard. So it might kind of sway some of that random surface vote. So this is an interesting discussion because this is the first time we've really tried to dive into how the voters will think. But I think it's important here because I don't think there's a lot of daylight between the two goaltenders. I think that's fair to say. And usually basically that kind of variance is going to drive who it's for. first and who gets second here.

Right. But we agree on Lundquist-Holpi 1-2 in the combination? You would have Holt B-Wi-1-Lunquist too? I would have Holt B-Wan-Wun-Wis too. I'm definitely willing to concede that Lundquist could eat, like, this is kind of a good time to make the Holtby argument because Lundquist has seen his numbers dip quite a bit over the past couple weeks, and it's very possible that if we had this conversation like two weeks from now, he could look far more comparable numbers-wise. So I think those guys are one-two by a mile, and I think number three for me is Corey Schneider. That's fair to say it, right?

Wow, that was boring. So we had a good spirit in one, two, debate discussion. Well, okay, so four or five is interesting because it's a couple of guys for me who play on really good teams and kind of as a result get overlooked and easily critiqued. Like, whenever their team doesn't win, it's because they were perceived as being the reason why. And like, for example, a guy, like, Corey Crawford for me is, I looked at his numbers when I was kind of trying to think of.

who would be my Vesnine. He's been ridiculous this year. No one talks about it. I was going to go with the other guy you were going to say in Pittsburgh. Yeah, Mark Hunterfler is definitely fair. I'm kind of curious to see how long he's going to be out with his concussion, which is kind of a little bit scary. It hangs over us like a cloud, and he could be out for a while or he could be back next week, so it's kind of tough to know. But I think you make a really good point about Corey Crawford. This is when we were going through the list of goaltenders in the Western Conference, I mean, it's just comical to go through that list to begin with. But like, Corey Crawford might be the most established

goaltender in there, the most trustworthy. And that's crazy to say because there were times when we saw him getting yanked for guys like Scott Darling. So it's, uh, it's, goaltending is a tricky little thing to pin down. Um, I am more than fine with Crawford picking up some votes.

So he's had a really good year. Same thing with Mark Andre Fleury. Yep. Uh, Ben Bishop as well. He's been to have to be his best player. Craig Anderson too. Yeah. Craig Anderson's racking up the saves too.

And that's, uh, the thing about Craig Anderson can be, so if we had, if we did the dark horse thing here, for a guy who could slide into respectable voting, I would probably say Craig Anderson, just solely on the fact that volume, I mean, he's just a volume play. It's like, hey, I stop 75 shots a game because I see 78 of them.

I'm carrying this good save percentage, but yeah, I'm going to end up with 400 more shots against than every other goaltender if I play the rest of the season. So he would be an interesting dark horse. Are there any other dark horses floating around there? Yeah, I think that a guy that definitely deserves some recognition is Roberto Luongo, which is, it's amazing because you look at the track record

of goalies when they pass the 35-year-old threshold, and it's bad. Like there's been, I think I was looking at it recently, there's been 11 goalies ever to post the 920, say percentage for better as a 35-year-old or older, and Luongo is having his second such season, and it's pretty remarkable. I mean, he has a 9-25 this year, which is tied with Flurry and Crawford. So, yeah, I think Luongo is sort of in that interesting little could sneak into the back end of the top five if he keeps this up. And Florida makes a playoffs. The thing about Longo is, like, usually when you see these goaltenders that are really old, you notice that they lose their post-to-post agility. I don't really see that with him.

Yeah, he's not the same goaltender he was in his peak in Vancouver, but he's still pretty mobile. He still reads the puck really well. He still reads shots through screens pretty well. I don't know, he makes a lot of savings. It's the only thing you can really say about the goaltender, and he's done this consistently for years. But, you know, I have to say I'm a little happy for Panthers' heads here because they are finally, I don't know that that team is great at all.

I'm actually pretty suspicious of where they are in the standings. But as we have said in the past, like, you just get a good goaltender and net, you've got a fighting chance. You can punch your way up. And that's kind of what they're doing. I mean, they're trying to build these young players, develop them into real talents in this team, but they've got a goaltender that when things go south,

he can bail them out. Well, it's been pointed out to me by listeners of the show that their win-loss records since they broke up that god-awful, good Branson Mitchell pairing, which you and I made fun of in our worst defense pairings in the league section of the podcast was they've won an astounding amount of games since they broke that up.

So it's a chock one up for the cricket guys. I believe at least three of those pairings that we talked about at that time have been permanently broke out. Have been shot into the sun? Yeah, permanently. I'm hoping permanently anyway for the sake of those teams. But that's been separately interesting to follow is there seems to be a bit more, I'm not going to go on a defensive defensive and tangent. But it seems like more coaches are willing to embrace the shot differentials for pairings as is this working or is this not. And that's good.

I mean, that's progress, but it's also curious to see, like, I think a lot of the times, this might be a bit anecdotal, but it feels like those players don't come out of the lineup. They just move on to new pairings. That's their way. They're more stubborn about these are my six best defensemen. Yes, I agree that this pairing is at work, so we'll just rearrange it accordingly. So I've seen a lot of that in the first couple months. It's interesting that you never see a defenseman like talked about like, oh, he's either a first pairing guy or he's a healthy scratch, whereas we'll discuss with forwards like, oh, this guy's playing on our. a top line. Oh, he's not there today. He's probably not going to play at all. Like, what?

Like, how is there no middle ground? And you don't really see that with defensemen. I'm just dying for a team to carry a Mark Andre, Bergeron type defenseman. Just, just let him sit, let him sit, and then every time there's a power play out there, just let him rip and then just sit him down. It's anyone named Mark Andre. Also, Mark Andre Garagnani was a similar type of player. He was. Not nearly as good. Yeah. All right, let's move on to Salki. I think this one, also going to be a pretty quick one. It's Patrice Bergeron's award to lose, right?

Yeah, it's pretty much it. See, that's the thing, though. It's kind of annoying, but it's basically his to lose every single year. Yeah. So. Well, I think there's an argument to be made for Sean Kuturier in this case. No. No.

No. Yeah, no. You're not how long we can go back. No, you're right. You're right. Someone's like, this podcast sucks. You're right. I think, yeah, Patrice Bergeron is fantastic.

Maybe like a moral up kind of macro question, though. Like, why do you need to be a center to win this? Let me try and speak to it. So when you say there's an argument to make, I agree that Chonquitria should be in the discussion of the Salki Trophy, but he's not going to beat Patrice Borgia. That's kind of my point. So if you were saying he should be in the discussion,

I will listen for sure because he's been very good. And like Philadelphia just, they basically drafted him and developed him to just be the Paul Gostad times 10.0 of their team. Just play grueling minutes against the toughest competition and just never start in the offensive zone and just play with scrubby linemates most of the time. And it's it's a weird thing to want out of a first round pick. It could be a chicken or the egg situation, I guess, because maybe his offensive talent wasn't nearly as what they thought it was. so they properly developed him, or maybe they stunted it by putting him into this role. I don't really know the answer to that.

But yeah, it's been a very interesting career arc to watch for him, because basically every other center drafted around him has not followed that path. Well, I mean, he's also 20, he just turned 23, and it's quite possible that maybe like two years from now, he, whether it's with Philly or someone else, he kind of falls into a more offensively friendly role, and he scores 30 goals and puts up 60-something points, right? it's not inconceivable that he reaches that at some point of his career.

But yeah, I don't know. I think that there's definitely like something to be said for the value he provides in opening up cushier roles for other players that wouldn't be able to do the defensive stuff that he does. But I agree it's not something you're kind of hoping for out of a guy that's picked in the top 10. Because we both agree that Bergeron's winning this. I guess we'll submit two more dark horse. I like for like a fifth place finish in this, I like Leo Komaroff to throw up. I think, you know, everyone's talked about his offensive numbers, his point totals.

The guy has been outscored by like 10 players in the entire league. And yeah, he's running white hot and that's going to fall down. Everyone knows that. But Comeroy for years kind of has his track record of this really reliable defensive forward. And he's showing it again this year. And Mike Babcock kind of deploys him out. Like he basically plays in any situation against any type of competition. I've always like when people talk about functional toughness,

like he's one of those guys that I would point to because he's a decent skater. He'll put you through the wall. He doesn't take a ton of penalties. He's annoying. He'll score from time to time. Like that's the exact type of like depth player that you want. And I just feel like he's been a very positive defensive impact type of player for a couple of years now. It's nice to see him picking up the points.

And it's weird because even in, for the Selke, like you're not supposed to consider, or I don't think you're supposed to consider point of goals here. But that, that's built his name up. Like, he is a name now. And I do think that that's going to be extrapolated into, oh, yeah, he's having a really good season. Maybe we'll give him some votes.

I don't know. I would be more than fine with him entering that second tier conversation here. Technically, the award states it's purely defensive value, but there's no question that you have to reach a certain level of standing in the league and be, uh, effective. enough offensively to even like gardener attention for that right and and so kumarov is is a winger and i guess that that brings up the interesting debate of like why do we necessarily uh just have to give this to a center like i understand that face offs of course yeah yeah of course that's no sir that's the only reason that is the basically the only reason it's guys because a big part of what i believe

voters have done is oh yeah and he wins 56 percent of his draws check that box yeah and it's because that's like the metric. Hey, that's, we want a big, the big defensive battle in the defensive zone on a, on a draw late in the game. And he's good defensively. And it's like, oh, no, but you, you don't, you miss when he loses the draw and Comorov stick checks his guy and breaks out of the defensive zone. It's like that, that's, it's been very frustrating. And I think a lot of the center voting, like centers have huge defensive responsibilities. I'm not going to pretend that, that wingers deserve more of the voting attention on this award front than centers. Right.

But the ratio is just ridiculous. Yeah, I mean, who's the last winger that won a Yeri Lettinen, I think? So it's like, yeah, it says it all. It's crazy that Hosa's never won it. I mean. So how many times has a winger won it since 19? Do you have it up? You got to pull this up.

I'm legitimately curious. I want to know how many times a winger has won the Selke since 1972. Since 1972. Okay, well, Bob Ganey as a left-winger won at a bunch in the late 70s. Craig Ramsey, 84 for the Sabres. I've never heard of this person. Dirk Graham for the Blackhawks as a right-winger in 1990. And then Erie Lettenant, and that's it.

So four? Yeah, it looks like four different guys. Since 77 now. So how about this? It is four times as likely for a winger to win the Selke than it is for a defer. defenseman to win the heart. Because if I'm correct, since 71, 72, the only defenseman that's ever won a heart trophy is Pronger in 99. I think I have that right. So I just, I remember looking at that a couple of days ago and I'm like, it's kind of bizarre to me that in a league where, especially

recently, where defensemen are so pivotal to team success that it's basically points, points, points, That's, again, because this ties back into my point about data. We have very limited things that are automated on the official league websites and voters look at these things and they say, this is where I'm going to draw my conclusions from. And right or wrong, it's definitely unfortunate, but I'm telling you that's a big reason why the voting plays out the way it does. Yeah, yeah, definitely. All right, let's move on to the Calder now. This one, I think this one's pretty much on lock, but it's conceivable that it could be. someone else as the year goes along. But I think like right now it's pretty clearly been

Artemey Pernarine. Yeah. Which he's at a monster seat. Which brings up an interesting debate about age and stuff like that, right? Like he's 24 years old and well you can get it under 25 or 26. Yeah. No, I mean he's eligible but it brings up like an interesting point of like well what are some of these guys going to look like when they're 24 and they're 18 right now but like that's just not how it works. I understand how people get frustrated with it. But the. fact the matter is is that Panarin is a rookie in the NHL and he's under the age limit, so he is eligible for the award, and that's, by that logic, he should be winning it. I'd like to see them kind of revise that rule just going forward. Just on the basic principle

that I don't know when the criteria was in and of itself established, but I do think it's fair to say that you have more guys playing professionally, internationally now before they jump into the NHL. Plus, you have guys... Well, the league is just getting out. younger. Yeah, that's another fair point too. So it's like, you know, you see the, this wave of young players now where it's like you should have a pretty respectable sample of players under, I don't know, 22, 23 call it. And I don't know, I, to me, we should knock it down. Because I believe, I can't, I want to say it was someone in the Western Conference in the last few seasons was 25 or 26 in Calder eligible. And I can't. It was Damien Brunner, wasn't it?

He had that one year where he came home from Europe And he scored a bunch of goals for the Red Wings Um No, it was not him I got I'm gonna have to follow up on this I'm positive it was a Western Conference player though But this was one of the Reddings during the Western Conference Courts

2012, right? It feels more recent though It feels more recent Yeah, no it's possible I think that yeah Based on the rules right now Panarin has definitely been the most impressive quote unquote rookie

Yeah, I would vote him one I mean, I think that's fairly... Would Dylan Larkin be second? He'd be my top three. I mean, he's been really good. I've seen him do... His individual, quote, individual plays with the puck on his stick. His highlight rule this year has been ridiculous.

I've seen him turn some of the league's best defensemen around multiple times. And look, I'm not saying that that is the single defining point of when you win a true, when you win the Calder or not, but like, you don't, you don't get away with the types of moves that he pulls off unless you are really slick and really good. And, uh, I've, I've always come away impressed after watching him. I ultimately, I think what's going to be interesting with this race is can one of McDavid or Eichel get into that top three? Ickel's cooled off. McDavid's been on the, uh, McDavid's been super cool. Yeah, I, I have heard that he's not scored in quite some time. It's like, I feel like people.

should be talking about this. I haven't even noticed McDavid on the ice. Invisible. Invisible. But he, so my point with McDavid is this. He was so good before the injury. I almost wonder if he played 55, 60 games and was just as good as he was early in the season. Like, can he get into this discussion again? No, I think he definitely can. Like, it, it'll have to be a very impressive kind of return and he can't really ease back into it. But, Assuming he comes back in a reasonable time frame, it's definitely in play. I haven't really seen, like, I think Ikel is going to be amazing as an NHL. I just haven't really haven't seen it this year.

I want to talk about, wait, what was that last sense? I haven't really seen, like, I haven't seen anything from him recently, I guess I should say that would lead me to believe that he's going to just like rip off an insane stretch of games here to jump back into it. I don't know, it's kind of, it's kind of weird because, again, if you're an 18, 19, 20, 21-year-old rookie with no professional experience and you come in the league and you look just fine, I'm very optimistic that you're having a long-term career. Jack Eichl has done that and he was great to start the year.

He's cooled off. One of the things that I kind of, like it's a Dan Bilesma thing, I know he's trying to do it, especially of late. He's trying to balance his line so there's more talent dispersed through the forward group. And as you know, the depth in Buffalo just isn't great right now. And that's a byproduct of, you know, basically tanking last year, actually just tanking last year. I wonder, though, if it's having an adverse impact on Jack Eichael's performance because his five-on-five numbers are starting to crater a bit. And I just, again, this is a bit qualitative, but I feel like he was having more of an impact earlier in the season.

Maybe that's partly because also now that guys like Ryan O'Reilly are really having great years and Van der Kaine has really come on since he's come back from injury. Maybe he's just now been reduced to his second fiddle role, which is an unbelievable role to be in for someone of that age. Let me underline. But I just, I don't know. Like I've never come away in the past month or so from watching a Savers game and thinking Jack Eichl is the best rookie right now.

Maybe he will be the best player in three years. it's possible. Probably not. It'll probably be McDavid. Could he be two? Likely. But just for as it stands right now, for as the voting for the trophy would go,

I don't know that he's in my top two. And even top three might be a tad bit of a stretch. Well, I think, yeah. And we need to emphasize that point, right? Like, we're talking strictly this season. It's impressive for a guy that young to be doing anything really at the NHL level and not looking like he's completely out of place. And I mean,

an guy along a similar vein like that for me is Nikola Elyers in Winnipeg, where he, when you watch him, I can definitely see him being an absolute monster in this league. He's struggled, though. He has struggled. Yeah, he has. He has. And he's had a really cold stretch and he hasn't looked like the player he did early on. But I think that like what we saw in the first month or so where he just like gets around the ice

and gets to wherever he wants to and he shoots a ton and he draws a lot of penalties. And I could see him being like a very, very, very effective player moving forward. But it's all about what's going on this year. And I think that Panarin and Larkin have pretty clearly kind of been won two in terms of this class. The one thing I'll say about Jack Eichael and Connor McDavid and really any rookie is last year was fascinating to watch that race because the race was almost decided purely on second half runs by two players, both in Ottawa. And to me, that screams opportunity, right? It also screams recency bias, which we know plays a big role in voting. And the big takeaway last year was that Stone and Hoffman had unbelievable seasons for sure.

If you isolated on the second half of the season, they probably both looked like Rerkes of the year. Over the course of the season, I think it was fair to say where they finished. But I think maybe it was a bit, the voting was maybe a bit kind to them just because it focused. So to me anyway, it feels like there was a lot of. Credit given to that team is just ridiculous run, and they're scoring down the stretch instead of looking at all 82 games. But to my point, that certainly should not spell out or rule out Jack Eichael or Conner McDavid from this conversation. Because if they go off a blistering back 40, I mean, they're right back in it. Man, I'm looking at the Calder history.

In 2002, Barrett Jackman has a 21-year-old defenseman won the Calder. By the hell, by the way, Barrett Jackman having a really good year. Really good year. His shot differentials are off the charts. It's absolutely ridiculous. It's just another defense from better than Jay Weber, I guess. Oh, my God. Okay. Let's let's pair these two awards up kind of as, I mean, we can break them down individually, but the GM of the year and the Jack Adams sort of go hand in hand a little bit. And I think let's start with the GM of the year because that's the way I just listed it here on this rundown. So that's that's what we're going to go with. I think there's a couple interesting names here.

I think that Jim Nill, as anyone that's listened to the show, knows that he has to be, of course, right up up near the top of the list. I think a guy who might overtake him for me, though, is honestly Brian McClellan in Washington. I think that just based on the fact that he brought in two top six right wingers on the cheap and this team looks incredible, needs to be, can't be like, can't be overstated. Like I honestly was like, when he came in taking over for George McPhee, I was like, oh boy, like this is, This is going to be a disaster. I remember he was working with George McPhee, and he kind of like people made it seem like he threw him under the bus a little bit. And I don't know,

just wondering, like, wouldn't you want to bring an outsider who, like, wasn't part of that entire disastrous run to try and fix things up and mop things up? And they went internally, and it apparently was a good decision because I've liked pretty much every one of his moves. So if we were talking about,

like, how we would, let me say it like this. I feel like a lot of people interpret this award a lot differently, but I feel like me and you would probably be on the same page in terms of, again, just weighing the influence that these GMs have had in particular over the last 12 months. To me, that makes a pretty compelling case for Jim Nill to win it. Again, you go through the list of moves Jim Nill struck out on. That is a very short list. Now, you can debate some of the moves that he's made that, you know, maybe there's going to be, uh, a negative and adverse effect down the road, but as it stands right now, that team is a buzzsaw. Like, I mean, that's just reality. Like, Dallas looks like the best team in the league, and this is not a team that drafted and developed particularly well.

They're actually one of the very few teams that have acquired a lot of their talent externally. I mean, just think about it. They got Jason Spetsa for Magic Beans, right? Yep. I think Alex Cheson has, like, 11 goals in, like, the last 150 games or something. It passionately annoys me when the commentators call them Chia Sun. His name is pronounced like eight different ways. It's just beyond belief.

He got Patrick Sharp in a deal that ended up being another deal for Rob Skidary. That was pretty much it. The goaltending duo, I guess, would be the big hiccup that we envisioned. That's a lot of money. It's like almost $10 million, I think, and that. Even that has worked out. So, again, I don't know that that was the optimal way to spend on goaltending, but it's worked and all of his other moves have just graded between like a minus and a plus.

So from Washington perspective, the way I look at it from a capital perspective is this. That team's been, they've ranged from pretty good to really good for years and years and years. I feel like Jim Nill's fingerprints are directly on Dallas's performance. I think that's really the biggest takeaway. He didn't walk into. What did Jim Nill really walk into? He had a decent core, not a good. great one and he's acquired a ton of talent. And that is the mark of a good GM, I think.

I think, yeah, he's definitely, like, put in more work just from start to finish in terms of putting his fingerprints on the team. I think that the job done in Washington is an interesting one just because it would have been, like, really easy to mess that up. I mean, they were spiraling out of control and it would have been very easy for someone to come in and just completely blow it up and start from scratch and make a lot of moves, which we all would have critique, then they kind of held true to form and just brought in Barry Trots and made a couple of kind of tinkering moves, and it's all worked out. So if we're also going in the principle of just a lot of moves we like and we feel like they

have had the biggest positive influence on their team, the syndicate in Toronto is also in my top three. And that's going to be unpopular because they are just a team kind of floating in the standings. But I would say this. One, they've been extremely smart with cap management. The mere fact that they got David Clarkson off the books is ridiculous in and of itself. But look at all these small, short-term buys they made on players who are ranging from semi-productive to really productive on the current roster.

They've essentially, and this is the mark again of the front office, they stole probably the best coach in the world from an organization. That is also the mark of a GM. And they're competitive. And in a lot of situations, I think this team would be a surefire lottery bet. I find it really unlikely that they are going to finish worse than Vancouver, than Arizona, than Columbus, maybe a handful of other teams. And look, they're not going to win it.

I say he or they, just because there's so many cooks. Yeah, who are we giving this award to? I think it would have to go to Shannon. But I'm not, it's, it's like, it's like, you know Lou is going to come and just be like standing in the background and just stealing it from. I guess, I guess technically it would go to Lou. but it is Shanahan and I guess Kyle Dubus in part too. But I would just say this in defense of that statement that you can't go down the list of moves Toronto's made in the last, I don't know, X number of months and say, ooh, that was really bad.

Or, ooh, that's adversely affected the team. I think they've improved it. The Kessel trade was a big one and we could probably do three hours podcasting about that topic. But for the most part, I think Toronto's done reasonably well. I think they deserve some credit for that. Look, no voter is ever going to give a team's front office credit for stealing a coach, but they did. They stole a coach. I mean, that's a huge bonus for an organization.

No, I'm completely with you. Let's do the Jack Adams quickly here. And instead of discussing- Who got the highest PDO. Well, instead of discussing who we think will or should win it, let's discuss what the shelf life on that coach is going to be like and what that decision is going to look like two, three years from now. Because looking at the list of the past,

Jack Adams winners is hilarious. Who is the PDO leader right now? Is it Dave Cameron or Elaine Vigno or is it tip it? It's one of those three. Yeah, I would not be surprised at all to see Dave Cameron get a lot of credit for pushing the right buttons. I mean, he had to teach Mike Hoff in a lesson. You know that, right?

I honestly, I genuinely do not believe. I have to say this. I think voters are getting a bit wiser. and I feel like you might disagree with me on this, but I feel like we are not where we were in 09, 10, 11. I feel like... Dude, Bob Hartley won the Jack Adams last year. All right, I give up.

You win this. It's a fair comment. Just drops the mic. I'm trying here. No, I just, maybe it's just, again, this is, might be anecdotal, but the people I talk to, um, certainly I feel like maybe, it's the nature of what I do now,

but I feel like more questions are being asked about these types of things, whereas where we were, maybe a few years ago, Maybe it's not enough to not have Bob Hartley's win trophies, but maybe I'm just an optimist here on this front too. But like I just, first, first off, I don't think that Dave Cameron can win the Jack Adams. Yeah. I mean, the team is just so bad. It's comical. Dave Tippett, I could see winning because everyone had Arizona pegged for Deadlast and they're fighting in that division.

If they go to the playoffs, I'm telling you right now, I could see Tippett getting into that conversation, especially because he has a long track record of being a pretty good coach. I feel like that will also boost him up a bit. And I can't, I don't know whether or not that's fair to give a guy a spike because he is an established coach and he has done well in years past with talented teams. But, you know, Arizona's riding this PDO wave and they're not good at all, but they're fighting in it. And I don't know if you should ding a coach for that or if you should credit a coach for that. or what, but I feel like he's going to be in that conversation. Well, it's really impossible to say truly, like, how much of an effect the coach is making

because I think, like, my top three in some order is trots, Sutter, and rough, and all those guys are great coaches, but they also have fantastic teams, and we wouldn't be talking about them. I don't think if they didn't have so much talent on their teams. Like, you obviously have to push the right buttons and kind of maneuver the lineup and stay on top of it and make sure you're optimizing everyone's talents.

But, like, at the end of the day, it really is a player's league. And it's one of those things where you're going to wind up rewarding someone just for having a really loaded squad, I think. Like, that's just the way it is. So I don't know how you don't give Daryl Sutter. He's never won one. That's amazing to me. I mean, yeah, the team is really good again.

They're feeding off a pretty weak division right now in fairness. But there was a lot of smoke about him last year, not getting along with. players and those crazy stories of him being locked out of the locker room. And I feel like I would, actually, I would say I would certainly vote for him in my top three, along with Trots for sure. Look, they're probably the best five-on-five team after maybe Dallas. And they've been this way for years and it's very system-oriented and he seems to get buy-in from every single one of his players.

And mostly, if you look at what L.A.'s done wrong in the last. last few years, I think it's almost exclusively on the player management side. And again, I'm saying this relative, like, L.A. has made far better moves than some more other organizations in the league. But I feel like if you were to levy criticisms, it'd probably be more with the front office than the coaching staff. Look, they're really good again. They are just pummeling teams at even strength. And I think you could do way, way worse than putting him in that top three conversation. Yeah, I definitely think that he should be in there. And I don't know. Who will, who will win it? Back to your question, who will win it? Um, I could see, I could see trots.

I think it could go trots. I think trots winning it. And which I would be cool with. I would say, I, I think trots is definitely in my top, he's certainly in my top three and probably in my top two. So I think they, they couldn't go wrong there. But I just worry like, again, like, like you said, it seems like a lot of the award, they have to put in at least one guy who took an underdog team, you know, to new heights. And my problem with that is almost always... It winds up looking silly. Yeah, it's just a team that shot 9.5% for a year.

And it's like, you have a coach credit for that or not. So that's kind of why I think it's... I think the safe play here is Sutter and in Trots here too, because I think you could do way worse than one of those two guests. I'm with you. All right, man, that's it. I think those are all the awards we wanted to cover. Excellent.

So when we come back, we're coming back from Christmas break. We will not be covering World Juniors. We'll be covering the first wave of Veneto games back, right? Yeah, definitely. No, I'll give you permission to bring on a guest to talk about World Juniors. Yeah. You know what? I will say this.

I will watch the Boxing Day game. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's good. I mean, it's going to be Canada, Canada, U.S. on Boxing Day. So what? Did you watch any of this game today that was 7-6? I didn't know. See, look at that.

That was a test. You passed. No, man. We're recording this on Wednesday. I had to spend all day shopping for presents and whatnot. And, yeah, it was great. I always definitely learn my lesson and don't leave it until the last possible moment. So it was pretty frantic.

Did you see my... Yeah, I saw your rapping group. Yeah, no, that was a, that was quite a spectacle you put on there. I had a family member who, in one word, described it as a disgrace. You should be banned from Christmas. Christmas. Yeah, I don't, so this was the first year where I've wrapped a gift and I haven't had enough wrapping. So I just kind of put tape over the marks that are uncovered. So that was kind of a screw up. But for the most part, it's just, you know, it's just surround and fold and tape everywhere.

Like that's a good strategy. Yeah, that's a good strategy. That's going to be the name with this podcast, surround and tape everywhere. All right, man, before we get out of here, let's thank a few people who have donated to the show. Mark, Nolby, Jennifer H. and Derek Kingman. thanks to all you guys for your donations and your support. And if anyone else out there is interested in helping out and giving a helping hand in the holiday season, you guys, that'll be appreciated. Travis, man, we'll be back early next week, I guess. We'll have a few more shows before the end of 2015. And, yeah, so people can look forward to that, I guess.

Yeah, maybe New Year's Eve. I might tilt a few back and they get on the podcast. Oh, excellent. All right, man. Happy holidays to you and everyone listening, and we'll chat soon. All right. The Hockey PDOCast, online at HockeyPedocast.com. Subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud, or follow on Twitter at Dim Filippovich and at Travis Yost.