The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 431: Systems and Strategies

Episode Date: March 14, 2022

Jack Han joins the show to talk about teams we've been interested in recently, and the notable strategic changes they've made to the way they play. Topics include: Florida's historically great offensive results Whether that kind of style can translate to the playoffs The importance of board play, and getting 'off the wall' Calgary's defensive structure under Sutter How he's gotten Johnny Gaudreau to buy into the plan A diverse attack and unique shot selection by the Blues LA's improved process, and turning it into more goals 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. 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, each one is much appreciated! 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, Dime. Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name is Dimitri Pelpovich, and joining me is my good buddy, Jack. Jack, what's going on, man?

So, Dimitri, you've been asking me about the secrets behind the Florida Panthers. I think everybody in the NHL wants to play more like Florida, and I think I've kind of figured out why that is. Okay. Well, that's great that you got us there. That was going to be the first topic I'm going to talk about. Well, let's set it up. I think just so people kind of get a feel for what we're going to do on today's show. Usually when I have you on, it's a very open platform, we just talk about whatever's been interesting to us. Usually like in between shows we do, we're texting each other being like, oh, we should talk about this sometime, blah, blah. And then once the list gets long enough, we're like, all right, let's just record. And so I got a bunch of them. We're going to try to kind of nerd out on either style of player strategy or whatever and just talk. about a bunch of teams and the Florida Panthers are certainly the top of my list. And I'm going to give you some stats just to set the table and then you can get into your kind of findings on it. So as a team, they're scoring nearly 3.5 goals per 60 at 515 this season, which is the highest rate we've seen in the Ann Analytics era just ahead of the 2009 10 capitals and the 2018 19 Lightning.

In all situations on a per 60 basis, they're averaging 4.1 goals, 3.7 expected goals and 37 shots on goal. All of those are also number one since 2007. They have five different players already with 20 goals, which doesn't include Jonathan Hubertow, who has 18 of them, but is also on pace for 116 points. And Aaron Eckblad, who I think it's under-talked about because Kail Makar has been so transcendently good offensively this season and Victor Hedman's return to form. And we're just blessed with like amazing two-way defensemen now. But Aaron neckblatt coming back from like a brutal devastating leg injury to play at the level he's played at so far is similarly remarkable he's got 15 goals he's on pace for nearly a point per game as a

defenseman anyone that's been paying attention knows about barakov's line and huberdow's line and we've talked in the past about how they've gotten value from splitting those two guys up but now they've also got this third line of sam reinhart anton lundell and mason marchment that just has preposterous on ice stats i know a lot of it is inflated from that one game against Columbus where Mason Marchman had a million points, but they've played 115 minutes together so far, and they're up 17 to three in that time. And it's an interesting use of Sam Ryanard, because when they acquired him, I was like, all right, I wonder if he's going to play as the finisher on Hubertos line or if he's going to and center it or if he's going to play on the wing on

Barkov. And it turns out neither because they have such a wealth of talent and depth that they can afford to kind of split it out this way. So that's all setting it up for you. What have you seen from the Panthers and sort of what do you take away from that? So I've kind of seen them coming for the past couple of years now because in the past three seasons, they've gone from like a very mediocre offensive team at five on five to really showing signs of becoming elite last year and then just being ridiculously good this year. And, you know, I wrote about them last year on my newsletter and basically it was the roster turnover, right? They've added a lot of guys who are good off the rush. And also they've added a lot of defensemen who are very comfortable. jumping to the play.

And then this year, it just seems like they've, they've kind of done some fine tuning. Some of their players have stepped up. Some of their newer players. And now they're just historically good, which, you know, I wouldn't even have expected. And I think that the bedrock of what they're doing is they're doing a lot of damage off the rush. And then once they get into the offensive zone, they kind of take advantage of that confusion to win these retrieval races to extend their ozone possessions. And then they attack a lot downhill,

which means that instead of having three players down low, they're only having one or two players, but then always having some movement diving toward the net, which is not unique to them. Toronto uses it quite a bit. Colorado is another team that actually predates Florida in this regard. Same thing with activating dirties off the rush. So they've basically taken, you know,

I think Colorado's playbook from a couple years ago and kind of pushed it to the limit. Yeah, I would say I'm completely intrans by watching them play. Like with all due respect to the abs who have a remarkable combination of players, I think the Panthers right now are the best show in hockey just in terms of stylistically, like the games that they're able to put together. You know, they obviously have a bunch of talented players and that plays a big role. Like it's a talent-driven league. if you don't have the personnel and the firepower,

you can be the best coach in the world, but you're only going to be able to get so much out of them. But I think the bigger functional takeaway here and sort of just, you know, kind of looking around the league and talking with people, and as you said, everyone's trying to figure out like, okay, how are they doing this?

Like, how are they adding these players who otherwise seem very flawed or weren't getting these results in their past stops and all of a sudden inserting them into this lineup lineup and just like getting the absolute best possible scenario out of them? And I think the functional takeaway here is is that way they play, like how they generate those results. It's this kind of complete buy in to push the pace, right? Like I know this is a concept that you're really high on in terms of defensemen sprinting up the ice and actually putting in that effort to involve themselves in the play. But there's so many situations where you're trained just watching games at the NHL level for the most part, especially if it's nearing the end of a shift and the guys don't have a full tank of energy left.

It's like a harmless looking two on two or three on three scenario. and most teams are kind of content just, you know, dumping the puck in or stalling for time and potentially just kind of kicking the can down the road and living to fight another day and getting fresh skaters out there. And instead of the Panthers, like all of a sudden, whichever really any of their top three defense pairings, you'll have someone just sprinting up and joining and making it a three on two or a four on three and they're actually actively trying to score or at least create something from that sequence.

And there was a game a while back against the Rangers that I was watching and I really just stuck in my head just seeing, I believe Ekblad and Weeger were the two leading the rush. It was like a three on two. And they were the two guys up high, like really pushing it. And it's just like, like when do you ever see a scenario where there's the two defensemen are the ones that are so aggressively both, you know, willing and able to actually execute that way. And so I think it's like a philosophical thing more so than a talent thing.

Obviously, they have great players and you don't want to diminish that by any means. But like, I think there is something actionable there. in seeing the way they're playing. And I know it's like, oh, well, if you play that way, are you giving up too much defensively? Are you opening yourself up for these fun track meet games that ultimately aren't going to result in playoff success? But I think this is just a really good team that is also kind of found this nice match

between being really good and also really fun. So for me, the secret within this whole way of playing, whether it's Florida, whether it's Colorado or, you name it, is that if you think about it, for players to feel comfortable sprinting up ice and taking part in the play, especially with their defensemen, they got to play with the expectation that the puck is coming to them. Because if you're a player who's relatively smart and relatively capable playing at a high level, you have this kind of built in six cents of like you're not going to go if you don't realistically think that you're going to get the puck. And you're not going to go if you don't think you can do something with a puck once you get it.

So I think if you're a team that's looking to replicate what Florida is doing, you should actually look at the things that they're doing that doesn't include sprinting up ice, which is they're doing a really good job of getting off the wall. So getting inside the middle of the ice. And once again, if you're a winger and you're not so good at getting off the wall, the defenseman playing with you are not going to jump because you're expecting you to turn the puck over. And then they're going to have to defend and essentially make up for your mistake. Or they're expecting you to chip the puck out, in which case for them to sprint is just going to be a waste of energy. So if you watch Florida play, when you see players sprinting off the puck, it's usually because a player on the puck is doing something good and finding that lateral play.

Well, and if you look at the way they've constructed their lines right now, I think they certainly have the personnel where they can mix a match a lot and they've experimented with even putting Hubert O and Barakov back together at times to spark the team and whatnot. But the way they're constructed right now, you've got Carter Verhegey online one, you've got Jonathan Hubertoe online two, and you've got Sam Reinhardt on line three right now. And I think all of those guys are exceptional at getting off the wall, as you're saying, in terms of retrieving a puck that seems like a very harmless situation. And all of a sudden, whether it's actually moving it up themselves or quickly hitting someone

in the middle of the ice as they're kind of joining and activating that way, it allows them to sort of maximize that. So I think that's a really, really smart observation. And that's certainly something like I've, the more I've watched and the more I've kind of devolved into hockey insanity in terms of just watching as much tape as I possibly can. And that skill, I think, is such an underrated one in terms of being able to make that play effectively off the wall and not just throwing it blindly into the middle of the ice and it being a turnover, being a kind of behind the player and them not being able to make the next play with it. Yeah. And I think in recent years, because of teams like Colorado or Toronto or Florida, the understanding of how to create offense has gotten way better across the league before you would hear coaches say, you know, play fast.

What does play fast mean? It just means you take a puck, you chuck it into the air, toward the other goal, and you sprint after it, like, you know, I don't know, like a bunch of people after like a block of cheese that's falling downhill. Like, I don't know if that's an Irish or a Scottish or an English thing, but there's actually a game where you throw a block of cheese down the hill and people try to get it.

But that's what kind of playing fast look like. And I think the best. example that still is Carolina. They play that way with a lot of success. But for every Carolina, there's probably a half dozen teams that try to play that way with no success. I honestly don't know if Carolina's, they're doing something. I don't know if it's a, it's a, it's a replicable model.

Like when I watch them, they're obviously getting tremendous success out of it. But I'm like, they just like, they like throw the puck just anywhere. And then they're just so fast to be able to go retrieve it. I don't know if it's a Rod Bryndamore thing in terms of the way he's coaching them. or whether it's the types of players are targeting or what have you. It's probably a combination of the two. But like with a lot of these other teams with Colorado or with Florida, I think it's a much more sort of cleaner thing to be able to like look at it and be like,

all right, like it makes sense. I can kind of track from point A to point B what they were trying to do here or where the puck was moving. With Carolina, they're just like almost blindly at times just throwing the puck north, south as much as they can because they feel like they're going to be able to go and go and get it. You know what I mean? Yeah.

And but once again, like these are maybe. be the two extremes right now and both extremes work if your players are on the same page and they're playing with this expectation. So if you're on the Panthers, you're as a defenseman, you're expecting that the weak side winger is going to get off the wall and you're going to have to go and sprint and help him out. And he's expecting you to be there. Whereas for playing for Carolina, you're expecting that weak side player to just, you know, chip the puck down ice and you're going to go in and retrieve it. So in either case, you know, it works with their personal now and it works with the expectations that they've set.

I think the gold standard at sort of playing off the wall, they're sort of showing the hidden value in it is probably, you know, what Dallas, we've talked about in the past on podcast, what Dallas is doing with Robertson and Pavelski in terms of how they make Rupa Hins even faster in a way because they, like, create additional space for them.

And they'd like run these like chip plays or kind of, you know, sequences that allow him to basically skate into it and utilize that speed. I was texting you about this. I feel like, you know, what Matt Boldie's doing in Minnesota for, for Kevin Field.

Viala is also similar where it doesn't necessarily seem that impressive in isolation. You watch a play and you're like, oh, okay, well, like, whatever. That was just kind of a generic play. But then you watch it over and over again and you're like, okay, this is like clearly by design in the sense that he's going in there, he's winning a battle. And all of a sudden Kevin Fiala is getting it in a very dangerous position. And that certainly allows him to maximize his skill set. And so it's, yeah, I totally agree with you in terms of the value of it.

The other point that I wanted to make about the Panthers, though, was we laud them for allowing your defensemen to sprint up the ice, right, and kind of playing that way. But I did want to make the distinction between sort of the fine line of having defensemen that sprint up ice that way and create that numbers advantage versus relying on your defensemen strategically to be the ones actually leading the Russian carrying the puck frequently. because I look at a team like the Washington Capitals, for example, and they're sort of on the other extreme for that, where I believe if you look at Gori Schneider's tracking, like they're one of the highest teams in terms of relying on her defensemen to actually enter the offensive zone with the puck and try to carry it in. And it's such an inefficient alternative, right?

And I'm not sure how much of that is just based on sort of the geometry of the ice or the capabilities of the players. It seems like I know there's like a, I think Delo Belfry harps on quite a bit in my conversations with him, but like I feel like, you know, defensemen almost these days like aren't trained to like they're, they can carry it in, but then they almost don't know what to do next with it. And that's why it's an inefficient method.

What's your sort of theory on, on why that is beyond just obviously the skill disparity between the two positions? Well, for me, like if like when I'm watching Florida or when I'm watching Washington or when I'm watching St. Louis, like these are three teams that are really aggressive at activating their Ds as the fourth player in the rush. and the difference in the results or a difference in how it ends up working out

comes down more to the individuals, I think. So you could tell the players to do a certain thing and you can kind of instruct them on the certain details of what you want to have done. But ultimately, you know, McKenzie Weger or Aaron Neckblad being in the rush is not going to look the same as Nick Jensen or Dmitra Oloff or it's not going to look the same as Tori Kri Kri. or Justin Falk, even though they may all get involved kind of in a similar way and at a similar frequency.

It's just at the end of the day, like, especially on offense, you're much more beholden to what the individuals play like. Yeah. It's an interesting debate. Okay, well, let's kind of pivot here. The next team on my list was the Calgary Flames, who I'd say similarly play fast, obviously don't necessarily aren't thought of as being as offensively prolific as the Panthers, let's say, but have similarly had a great success so far this year. And I think for me,

it's really been a joy watching them in terms of how well structured they are as a team. Like, what I've really noticed is there's a particular connectivity between the five skaters they have on the ice, like especially the forward and defensemen in terms of their forwards, applying back pressure and really allowing them to kind of swarm puck carriers, right? So on the one hand, it allows them to get much better results out of Erica Branson and Nikita Zedorov and defensemen that we've seen struggle at previous stops, I think, because it basically shrinks the amount of ice they have to cover, the amount of ground they have to cover, knowing that, all right, I've got a last Linholm kind of breathing down this puck carrier's neck. So I can I can afford to play this a certain way. And other, and kind of the trickle-down effect of that, I think, is what they succeed at so well is creating this, this. snowball effect of having one strong possession after another. And because they're able to sort of pressure the puck that way and get the puck back quickly, it allows them to do that.

And that's why you have these games, especially against teams that just like aren't able to compete with them at that level, whether it's Columbus or whether it was Detroit last night on hockey Canada where these games where you look up on the shot clock and it's 30 to four for Calgary or whatever or they're outshooting Columbus 62 to 20 or whatever it was in that one game they played. And it's because they're just like, they're just such a well-oiled machine right now that they're able to string together these sequences that ultimately just overwhelm teams. And I think opponents aren't necessarily used to seeing that kind of one shift effort or another. So, you know, we think of Darrell Sutter as a very old school coach, which, you know, he's been around a long time, right?

And the teams that he's had success with, whether it's in Calgary, the first time around, whether it's in L.A., whether it's Calgary now, like they kind of play in a similar way. And I think the aspect of all that that works is you look at the teams that you coaches and the way that they play is that they're not looking for home run plays. They're looking for singles, right? But they're looking for a large volume of these five or 10 foot plays executed with success and with consistency. So basically, it's like a really good running offense and football, which we know that passing is more efficient. We want teams to pass more. But if you're really good at running the ball, you can pick up one or two or three or five yards, you know, almost every single play. You're going to be really hard to stop.

And that's what Calgary has been successful at doing. And they've been they've been successful doing it without neutering Johnny Goodrow. Because he's basically often his own doing his own thing. And but then the rest of the team is playing in a very kind of incremental way. Well, it's interesting you bring that up because I recently wrote about him at E. B. side and I did like a full deep dive. I basically went back and watched all this shift to see how he was kind of coming across this, right? And he's been nothing short of spectacular offensively. He leads the league in five on five points. He's got 78 points in 58 games at the time of this recording.

Like he's been amazing. And I think he really genuinely believes, like deserves to garner a consideration for that kind of third open heart spot with Matthews and interest. But I went back, when I went back and watched that tape, what really stuck out to me was his play off of the puck, actually. because I think typically you'd think of Johnny Goodrow or a kind of undersized winger like him who relies on his skill and play with the puck. And you think of them as liabilities or you think of them, okay, like, you know, they're going to be a net negative defensively. And I think with a player like him, there's always going to be certain limitations physically because of his frame. Like he's not going to physically dominate opponents.

He's not going to hit guys and kind of cause changes in possession that way. But I am a big believer that for a player like him, I am reaching a level of competency defensively where you're just not a liability or you're not completely diminishing everything you do offensively by how bad you are defensively. It just comes down to effort or awareness of what's going on on on the ice and just kind of being able to involve yourself in the play. And sometimes quite literally just physically occupy space so that other people can't. And with him, like, he's been busting his ass this year where If you watch him, if there's a turnover, wherever in the offensive zone,

he's like forcing himself back into the picture to provide that back brush. We talked about and disrupt brushes and help quickly change possession. And so I'm not sure how much of that is his own doing. How much of it is Sutter? How much of it is the motivation of a contract year? I'm sure it's a combination of all of those things. But even with him, like it's a great example of sort of what they're doing and how they're playing because they've gotten complete buy-in in that regard.

And it really is just a five-man unit, regardless of who's out there for them. And once again, the idea of playing with the expectation. So, you know, Florida is doing it one way. Calgary is doing it another way. But, you know, nobody's really kind of standing around waiting for things to happen, right? They're looking for ways to chip in. They're looking for ways to help, whether it's offensive or defensively. And that's what good teams are made of regardless of their personnel or their style of play.

And actually, you said something. something off the top ball Florida that kind of caught my attention. You said that there were the, so far, they're the best offensive team in the analytics era. And who were second and third? Well, two teams who had very, very disappointing ends of their season. So you want to talk about that? Because I know one of the topics that you wanted to hit was, you know, kind of regular season teams versus playoff teams. Right. Well, it's a complicated topic because I think a law goes into it. And when I watch a team like Florida, I mean, if they're going to get consistent goaltending out of Sergey Bobborski, they don't need him to be Columbus Bob in terms of being a Vezna winner.

Like, they just need to not be a liability. I understand if they go up in another series against Tampa Bay, it's going to be tough for him to go toe to toe with Andre Vasselowski and be the better goalie in a matchup like that. but I think as long as he's not just letting in soft goals that are backbreakers every time they give up something, I think that's going to be enough. Like I don't know. Like when you watch them, do you feel like, like we've talked about how they allowed their defensemen to sprint up? But it doesn't necessarily feel like they're sort of cheating for offense in a way, right? Like they're very smooth in terms of the way they get back and all those guys skate so well

and kind of work in the middle of the ice that they're able to, like a Uighur is able to jump up in the rush, but then get back and be the first one back without necessarily giving anything back up defensively. So I want to switch gear for a second here. I know that you're watching Drive to Survive. Yeah. Right? The F1 series on Netflix. Of course, who isn't?

I just started season four today. You may not know this, but when I was when I was little, like when I was like 10 years old, I was the biggest Formula One fan. Like I would watch every race. I would watch racing more than I did hockey back then, to be honest. And I think there's actually a bit of a parallel between that and what we're talking about because in Formula One, the fastest cars or the fastest drivers don't necessarily end up winning championships, right? It's the drivers or the cars or teams that end up winning the championship.

They're not the fastest on a given lap or even on a given weekend. They're the ones that bring it consistently, you know, weekend and week out. And they're the ones that are comfortable being on the edge, right? Like in hockey, we talk about playing on the edge, whether it's physically, whether it's offensively in terms of your aggression. And we look at a team like Florida and you see how comfortable they are playing on the edge in their regular season. Right. But then we if you kind of turn back the clock to last playoffs, they lost against Tampa in the first round because Tampa threw them off their game and made them uncomfortable playing on that edge so that they would either be a little bit too passive and lose that offensive edge or they would. overplay and give up two on ones or breakaways or take penalties. And then ultimately, you know, if you look at the stats in that series, Florida control play

at five on five, but then Tampa completely, completely destroyed them on special teams and also off of odd man rushes. Right. Well, they also had a significantly better goalie. And yeah, I think the power play thing was key there where they were basically converting on like every single time they got an opportunity. And yeah, like power play. and goaltending.

Generally, that's what a playoff series when it's a best of seven can come down to. So I don't know, like, I've given a lot of thought to the idea of whether you want to frame it through the lens of shot selection or being able to get to specific areas of the ice consistently, both offensively and defensively. And when I watch Florida,

you know, they're able to do so because the rush, element is one part of it. But as you said, this year, they've been able to sustain that by having those second and third efforts in the offensive zone in terms of kind of regrouping and winning battles and then kind of moving the puck around and getting a second wave of it. And so their ability to do that gives me a lot of confidence. Like obviously, that doesn't guarantee you playoff success, but I don't view them as a team that's purely an all offense team and they have to win a six five game.

Like I, I don't know. Maybe maybe that's foolish. We'll see. I mean, it's going to be a complete gauntlet in the Atlantic, right? Regardless, you're going to play someone who's going to be really freaking good in round one. But I think there's no reason to believe that playing this way is going to preclude them from continuing that success in the postseason.

So for me, and this is maybe more of a traditionalist point of view, but, you know, there is a difference in terms of playoff hockey versus right. regular season. Of course. And the simplest would explain this is in the regular season, you're playing against, you know, all 31 other teams in the playoffs.

You're only playing against the top half of the league. Right. Right. So you're playing against better teams. Like no matter who you're up against, it's going to be a better team that you're likely to face, you know, on any given week in the regular season.

And when, what that happens is if we're playing against better opponents, then you need to be more discerning between possession pucks. so pucks that you want to hold while you're waiting for a better opportunity and attack pucks. And I think this is where perhaps, you know, if Florida were to get upset early or get in trouble, this is where they would get in trouble because you can be a little bit too overzealous at treating possession pucks like attack pucks. So, you know, if you give up a two-on-one against, you know, Arizona versus if you give up a two-on-one, against Tampa, you know, when they have Point or Kuchrov or Stamcoast,

Nd-D-S, it's not the same thing, right? It's just, it's just not. Do you think from an element of coaching or preparation kind of playing along with that idea, you know, over the course of the regular season, they play so differently than most teams you're going to bump into on a night-to-night basis that I feel like for most opponents, you go and you play a game against the Panthers. and by the time you sort of calibrate to what's going on or kind of the pace they're playing at, you're down 4-1, right?

And you're like, okay, well, tonight's a right off. Whereas in the postseason, if you have a best of seven and you get to see them time and time again, and you have time to really prepare for them or strategize for them or game plan against it, there's only so much you're going to be able to do because they're so deep and so good, but it will give you a better fighting shot,

at least kind of minimizing that risk or finding ways to pick them apart as opposed to if you're just kind of seeing them on a third and four nights or whatever that you're playing over the course of regular season. So, you know, as a coach, I think it may be the hardest thing to teach just because this balancing act of playing on the edge, you can't really describe it with words. You can only hope that your players had the experience or have the feel for doing that. And, you know, like this year, I'm not working with an NHL team, but I'm working with, the Connecticut whale of the PHF. And we went through a very similar, you know, change where last year we were probably close to 50% possession or expected goals, whatever we want to call it.

This year, we're doing much better. We're closer to 60% and we're having a franchise best season. And during the off season, when I was talking with Colennauer, our head coach and our assistants, one of the things that I made a point of was saying, you know, we're going to create those high end plays not. by trying to make those high-end plays, but by getting off the wall and creating a lot of those successful kind of incremental plays, right? We want to be the best team in the league at getting off the wall. We want to be the best team at receiving passes, right? We want to be the best team in the league at getting numbers up in the rush, but also getting them back. So by focusing on those things and by obviously getting a lot of good players, that's how you go from mediocre to elite

in whatever league that you're in. So you can't, you know, as a coach, I think you can set up your players for success by teaching them to smaller building blocks. But once the game starts, they got to find the edge. They got to find how aggressive they got to be on a given day. And there's really not a lot you can do from the bench to help them find that. You know, it's a matter of experience. It's a matter of having just good players, right, with more ability.

but when you have a good regular season team going to the playoffs, aside from just letting, you know, putting them in a position to trust themselves and not panic, there's not a lot of things you can actually do as a coach,

I don't think, to help them find that edge. They got to find that themselves. Okay, so take off your coaching hat for a second and put on your GM hat. If you're working with a team like the Panthers and you're sort of looking at your current situation

and the success you're having and then trying to figure out, okay, how do we translate this to postseason success? How do we, how do we, you know, build something substantial here with this group that we currently have? Are you, especially as it relates to, I guess, the deadline, but even, you know, this coming summer or whatever moving forward, are you trying to, like, strengthen a strength and keep adding players that fit into this style of play in terms of being able to skate

and sort of having this high octane offense? or are you trying to kind of diversify your group and maybe improve whatever weaknesses you perceive, even if it's only marginally because you feel like that's going to make a bigger difference than just keeping, keep on adding players that are similar to the ones you already have? So this is just my personal opinion, but when I look at Florida's roster, like, and whether it's, you know, as their GM or as a coach of another team that's trying to game plan against them, like what's their weakness? So in nets, I don't know it's as much weakness as it is a question mark because obviously

Bobrovsky has been really good in the past. He's been good to you. Yeah. Spencer Knight is someone with a lot of potential and he's been really good at lower levels. So, you know, it could be a big strength. It could be a big weakness or it could be somewhere in between. We don't know. But the other thing.

That's true. That's true for like 2019. Yes. Yes. But so I'm getting to the actual weakness. which is I think it's Brennan Montour and Radco Gudis. Those are two guys that I would be targeting because Montour is a very good offensive player.

He's very much up into the rush, a good offensive creator, not very good defensively, undersized, you know, the risk taking sometimes is not as good as it could be against, especially, you know, better players. Radco Gutis takes past. penalties. He's a heat seeking missile. So if you have basically around half the game, there's a player on the ice for the Panthers that you can exploit. So then if you kind of flip it around and now you're running the Panthers, you're thinking, okay, how can I minimize this? Because there could be a moment down the stretch where your coaches decide that Montura Goudis is unplayable.

So then can you put somebody else in that spot? Yeah, yeah, although I should say I keep forgetting this as well, but, you know, last year when they played Tampa Bay, they didn't have Aaron Neckblatt. I know that Victor Hedman himself was a shell of the player he is this season because he was clearly physically limited, but like that, that makes a big difference. So I don't know. Okay, enough on the Panthers. Let's, um. Recognized employees with custom ink. Show customer appreciation with custom ink.

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Which one do you want to do first? Let's do the blues. All right. So there's sixth and five-on-five scoring. The third on the power play. I think what's notable is, you know, you look on the surface and just based on like the general shot metrics we typically use, they're 25th in high danger chances and they're 18th in shots and expected goals, right?

They're shooting through the roof. They're almost 10% as a team. And you'd think, all right, well, you know, this is kind of an unsustainable design where you're just relying on basically a low, low volume of shots to go in at a very high frequency. But I think there is something deeper to it. If you look at Corey Schneider's tracking of them, their top 10 in both rush and cycle shots,

their fifth in entries leading to scoring chances, and their third behind only the Panthers and leaves in high danger passing plays. And that's, I think, the rub here where they've kind of quietly transformed their attack to have this nice overlap between sort of two generations of players. in terms of like the Kairus and the Thomas's. And then like Teresenko, you know, O'Reilly, Shen, Perron, and that group. And so the result is they have this very diversified approach of being able to beat you in different ways where they can kind of grind out possessions while also being able to, depending on who they have on the ice, quickly attack and transition. And it's made them a really dangerous group because, you know, you can't just necessarily load up, load up on one strategy or one playing style because they can beat you in so many different ways.

So I'm not sure ultimately what the ceiling is here, but I think people still think of them as kind of this, you know, big defensive team. And really, they've actually become a very interesting sort of modern offensive team. Yeah. And they're like, they're not big and slow or defensive at all. Right. Like, and I think it's, you know, the one thing you didn't mention was how they're able to get Bichnevish, who's obviously helping a ton off the rush. And, you know, Robert Thomas has become a top playmaker. But the two big changes that we've seen from them over the past few seasons,

first of all is in the ozone, they're very selective with their shooting. They're not going low to high and just pounding shots on that, hoping for rebounds and tips. They're very deliberate. So the poster child for that approach is David Perron. Like if you watch how David Perron plays with the puck in the ozone, essentially he's holding onto it. He's looking to slide it into a high danger area for a teammate. He's not wasting pucks.

He's not wasting shots. And I think that approach has rubbed off on his younger teammates like Thomas and Buchennevich and I think, you know, I think, you know, Barbashev, et cetera, right? So I think there's something to be said about how the veterans have kind of driven, driven the bus in terms of the ozone style of play. And then this year, I really noticed him being super aggressive at activating the Ds in transition. And the one guy that I never would have expected to lead the charge in that regard is Justin Falk. Because if you think back to when Justin Falk was like in Carolina, he was a guy that basically wanted to take a ton of shots in the power play and, you know, get those kind of gaudy point holders.

But without really doing much of anything in transition, you know, he was kind of, you know, I'm not a huge fan of Tyson Barry and I kind of lump those two in the same category for a while there. But now you look at Justin Falk, he's working super hard to get up ice, to get involved. And then without really giving up that much more defensively. And obviously, Tori Kruseman, a very good offensive defenseman. Scott Perunovich, I'm a really big fan of a guy who's always in the rush. So, you know, St. Louis, I think they got a good recipe. It maybe doesn't translate as well on the kind of the traditional possession stats or the shop-based stats. But I really like the way that they play and the way.

that they maximize the ingredients that they have there. Well, the reason why I wanted to lump them with the Kings together is because the Kings, on the other hand, are this like super high volume team where they're fourth in shots and high danger chances, their fifth and expected goal rate, but they're only 19th at 5-1-5 and scoring because literally no team is shooting at a lower percentage than them. I mean, like they're converting at 6.8 as a team, which is just really hard to do. Now, I will say, I think they've certainly transformed themselves into a much more rush oriented team offensively, especially compared to years past, where they get into,

get out in transition. And obviously their personnel has changed, but like, they're, they're not necessarily just grinding out possessions anywhere and firing from distance. So I'm not suggesting that the reason why they're not scoring is because that's what they're doing. And they're just spamming bad shots. Like, they're clearly, I think the process is there. I think what's interesting for me in terms of kind of forecasting ahead for them is kind of what's the next step. Do you hope for kind of organically infuse it? talent from all of the like they I think most outlets I know I know we at EP rings I had had them as the number one farm team in terms of all the prospects they

have they've accrued in the past couple years so do you kind of just hope that those guys come in and develop and and address that finishing concern do you instead go out and try to grab whether it's at this deadline or probably more realistically in the coming summer you know a high level finisher or two they can kind of help convert on that because the process is clearly there I think the way they're playing, all of those indicators suggest that, you know, it's a really formidable group, but they still, I think, have like one more hurdle to clear in terms of turning all of the, all of this good process into actual results.

So for me, I think the, uh, the Kings, they're really, they're in a really good spot in their rebuilt because even though they're shooting super cold right now, they're still, I think, in a playoff spot and they're kind of ahead of schedule. So, so I think that's really promising. And for me, when I look at the way that they play, it's kind of like the opposite of St. Louis, where St. Louis, you know, they have more of this group that has figured out a way to play in the ozone, whereas the Kings, there's still very much a work in progress. They're still spamming a lot of low percentage shots and, you know, doing it more with a volume approach. And then off the rush, maybe they're lacking a little bit in deception or in guile, you know, the kind of thing that I think young players don't pick up with time. And I think they're just, you're just, just a work in progress right now. So if there's maybe they can make a deal to get a to get some more good players than by all means they should. But, but, but, but I think organically, they're going to kind of regress to the mean and figure out how to turn all those shots and expect the goals into actual goals. But, you know, wouldn't be the worst in the world if, if they study some of the things

that St. Louis does in the offensive zone. Well, I think it's pretty, I think it's pretty encouraging or inspiring for their future outlook that they are getting the results. They are. And, they're sitting in a playoff spot considering that, right? Like, it's generally, if you're 32nd in shooting percentage at 5-1-5, you're probably not going to be in the playoff mix and for them to be doing so. Like, they obviously have the volume to kind of help compensate for that. But yeah, it's encouraging. I've enjoyed watching them play.

Like, I think, like, the pace they play at is significantly different than what we've become used to seeing from them. So I've enjoyed the Kings. All right. is there anything else that you wanted to touch on? Every time I message you, you're like, all right, well, here's this thing about the habs or the Leafs that I wanted to talk about. And I'm like, all right, I'm pretty sure people can check that out on like, I don't think

they're being undercover. I think we're good in terms of new takeaways about them. So I don't know. Is there anything else? Well, I mean, if you're talking about undercover, you know, like I've been working women's hockey for a long time. This season, I'm acting as a consultant coach for the. Connecticut whale of the PHF.

We have a really exciting group of players. As I said, we're on a franchise best, I think 11 game winning streak now. And then at the end of this month, we're going to do all of our playoffs in Tampa. So all 16, the league are going to come together. We're going to finish, I think, probably in the top two. So we're going to get a buy. But then it's just going to be a one game single elimination playoff format. that it's going to be televised on ESPN, I think TSN as well.

So I think it's the weekend of March 26. So if you want to tune in for that, maybe cheer us on. Hopefully we're going to have a good result. But we're doing really well here. Like we're controlling, I think, you know, over 60% of scoring chances so far this season. We got a really great group as good as Mason Marchman has been, you know, Kennedy Marchman, which is Mason's cousin. and she's been even better, one of the best players in the league.

Just an outstanding group to watch. And I'm sure if you tune in, you're going to learn something about possession of hockey. I love it. I love it. Okay, well, we'll plug some other stuff then. What are you been working on beyond that? So best way to keep up with me is on Twitter at J-H-A-N-H-H-K-Y. My biggest project that I've released recently is called Hockey Tactics 2020, the Playbook.

So I've diagramed the five-on-five systems of every team in the league, which is why it's so easy for me to talk about different teams and comparing how they play. So check that out on gumroad.com. So if you find my Twitter, everything else is going to be there, really great resource if you're a coach, if you're a player, if you want to learn more about the game. Yeah. If you enjoy today's podcast, I imagine that'll be right up your alley in terms of system stuff. Yeah, I enjoyed that quite a bit. say my personal favorite though is still the 2021 version of the hockey tactics.

I thought the stuff about Dallas's top line, which we've discussed on the podcast and kind of evaluating defensemen like Devon Taves and Mike Riley and sort of, you know, their ability to help extend to plays is foundational reading for anyone who wants to learn more about hockey. So are you planning on another book? I'm always amazed by the sort of frequency with which you're pumping these out. I do stuff on a whenever I want to basis, so probably, but we'll see about that. all right i like it well jack um keep up the good work this was a blast uh i'm sure we're gonna have you back on in a couple weeks here as as we watch more hockey and as we as we grow our list of of topics that we're interested in in the moment and that we want to discuss so uh thanks for taking the time to come chat and we'll have you back on soon okay care all right that is going to be it for today's episode of the hockey pdf as always thank you for listening hopefully you enjoyed today's show with jack on if you did and you want to spread the love and and help us out a little bit you can do so

by rating and reviewing the show wherever you typically listen to your podcasts. A lot of you've done so already. And thank you to those of you that have. It's all greatly appreciated. It helps us out a ton. If you haven't yet for whatever reason, please consider doing so. It is incredibly easy to do.

You just smash that five-star button. If you're feeling extra generous, you can write up a quick little blurb about either what you enjoy about the show or why you recommend people check it out if they haven't done so already. So thank you in advance for doing that. The content plan here, on this feed is over the next couple days we're going to do a trade deadline preview of sorts where we bring back an old favorite we've done a couple years in a row now trades we like to see where we're

going to try to cook up some fun stuff and get the conversation going and that's going to be kind of our preview and then after the deadline itself passes we are going to do a winners and losers style type show where we talk about the biggest trades and break them down and kind of cover everything you need to know in sort of the fallout and the impact moving forward for the rest of regular season. that's that's on the agenda um i have that to look forward to i'm pretty excited hopefully we get some fun traits to talk about and not just uh have to focus our entire time discussing ben shrodd hopefully we have some actual meaningful uh trades to break down and analyze so looking forward to that until then that is going to be it uh for the pedocast so yeah thank you for listening and uh we're

going to play the outro music here and get out of here and then we'll be back soon Dimitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.