The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 434: Die a Hero or Live Long Enough to Become an Eye Test Guy

Episode Date: April 10, 2022

Jack Han joins the show to discuss a variety of different topics. Things covered include: Jesse Puljujarvi's defensive and 5v5 impact How he's become such an effective player Cole Caufield's improvement under Martin St.Louis The changes he's made to his approach and shots Getting the most out of a player's specific skillset The functional value of reach in the NHL Rethinking the way we scout defensemen 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.

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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. dressing to the mean since 2015 it's the hockey pdio cast host to meet welcome to the hockey pdio cast my name's demetri philipovic and joining me's my buddy jack han jack what's going on in you're not sick of me yet no i can never be sick honestly honestly i could have you as a as a regular co-host here and i feel like

you and i could just talk about whatever for an hour like we generally have topics that we want to discuss and we map it out and we serve we message each other about them but for the most part i feel like we could just out of the blue, just throw out random things and just talk about it for an hour. So I'm happy to have you, man. Yeah. So our process leading into this was we had like eight topics. And I know that in 40 minutes, we can probably only do two. Right.

So let's see how this goes. Well, especially with the depth that I'd like to think that we typically approach stuff with. Like I'm sure we could cover 15 things in 40 minutes if we just, you know, lazily and casually, just like, oh, this, this and that. But we're going to try to deep dive this stuff as much possible. the plan. I actually have taken a couple of weeks off from the podcast. I need a little detox after the deadline just because it was just so hectic and we were churning out so much content around it. But this is also, I don't know if you feel this way. This is kind of the part of the year for me where I typically like to take a little bit of a step back just because I know it's like kind of the calm before the storm before the playoffs start.

But also I just want to like watch as much hockey as I can to see how players look on their new teams and stuff and how respective teams are approaching stuff down the stretch. I know there's like playoff races and people are interested in hearing about awards talk and this and that. But for the most part, for me, it's like a nice little moment of peace before everything. The shit just completely hits the fan for round one. So that's why I haven't done a podcast in a couple weeks. So what do you want to start with? Because we got a couple of good ones on top right now. All right.

Well, let's start. Let's start with my favorite one here and then we can do yours. How about that? I want to do yes, you, C, pull your RV first. One of my personal favorite players in the league to watch and follow, I think anyone that is familiar with my work on Twitter knows how I'm using I find him. But listen, like, I honestly don't understand how you can watch him play hockey and not love him.

Like, just he's kind of exactly what you want to see as a viewer. Like he's a young player who works his ass off every time he's out there and gives like a hundred, 10 percent. But he's also clearly having a blast and playing a game. And that's what NHL hockey is at the end of the day. It's a game and he enjoys himself. And so just as someone who watches a ton of hockey, it's fun to watch him. Obviously, we're going to deep dive the actual X's and O's and kind of what he does on the ice.

But just I wanted to get that out there first because I just people are always like, oh, why are you so fascinated with this guy? And I'm like, I don't know, just like the whole story and just the way he handles himself and everything is just so interesting to me. Yeah. And the thing that I just was reminding of today is he's only 23. Like it seems like he's been around forever because he, he started playing the NHL like right after he got drafted. Right. And basically, and then in between he had time to go home and play two years in Liga and now he's back.

So like he's, he's been around the. block and one of the best comparables that I've heard, you know, maybe it's an easy one, but Yeri Lennon, so they're both finished wingers and they do a lot of two-way things that maybe are quite subtle, but Yeri Lutton only made the NHR at 22, which is crazy to think about, right? Because we know how heralded he was later on his career and how successful he was. Well, yeah, and listen, I mean, here's the thing. Like, he was the fourth. He was the four. fourth overall pick in the 2016 draft. He came in, understandably, with a ton of hype and intrigue. He had to go back to Europe and work on his game, as you mentioned. And that's the part of the story

that I also think makes him really easy to root for because he kind of took this long road where he had to fight past the bloated expectations that come with that draft pedigree. And then the early disappointment that he faced in his career where he wasn't immediately an impact player and the type of player that you envision someone going for the overall being. And especially because like we're going to get into this year in a little bit like obviously he's got a huge frame and and a big body and so I think you associate a player who's got that draft pedigree with that type of body type and he plays differently than I think you'd associate with those two things and so I think it's taken people a long time and some people have still struggled with it to the point where

they like can't seem to to give him the credit that he deserves for the impact he's having because it doesn't align with our sort of perception of what that should all ultimately look like, if you know what I mean. Yeah. And I think for him, like, coming into the league as a younger player, even before he went back to Finland and, you know, quote unquote worked on his game, like, you know, I did a project on him when I was when I was in Toronto where I watched five of his games. And like, I saw a lot of the good stuff that he's doing today, whether it's working hard

defensively, whether it's making stops, whether it's with his reach or with his body, separating people from the puck, holding onto the puck, cycling. Like those are all things that were already in his game. And I remember the assessment that I had back then is, you know, at some point, this guy is going to be an elite two-way or more of a defensive play driving winger, which is exactly, you know, what he's turned into now. Yeah, he has. And I think, listen, like, he's obviously one hell of a player,

but I think the one reason why I find myself gravitating towards him is because he feels like a really perfect litmus test right now for how you how you watch games and kind of what you value in your players like I think where you stand on him as a contributor is awfully telling to me for your ability to I guess what we want to say properly evaluate players or kind of what you're looking for a science of contribution right because I think he still seems to be so underappreciated and ironically enough by like I see like a I guess allow like a allowed minority of Oilers fans at this point that still can't seem to get past like whatever limitations he has or he messes up or he doesn't convert on a great opportunity that

McDavid sets up for him. They're like, oh, let's buff this guy down the lineup. We need someone else playing in these minutes. And I get it in the sense that if you're just looking at the traditional box score, you're not seeing particularly impressive counting stats. It's like whatever he's got 13 goals this season, however many odd points. It's nothing to write home about. but if you dig a bit deeper, it's so obvious that he's doing all these little things out there defensively and around other areas of the ice that help create those positive impacts for his team when he's on the ice.

I'm going to give you some stats here. Since the coaching change, since they brought in Woodcroft to replace Dave Dippet, he's played 17 games, and that spans nearly 250, 5-15 minutes. In those minutes, the Oilers are controlling 60.8% of the shot attempts, 60.3% of the shots on goal, the high danger attempts are 72 to 34 in their favor.

They're outscoring opponents 18 to 2. And he's got a 65.2 expected goal share, which is the fifth best out of all skaters in that time. And I believe it makes him the only player that's not on the Bruins, leaves, or Panthers that's in like the top 15 or 20 on that list. So you just look at that and just the impacts. I know he's playing with McDavid now, obviously, and that certainly helps.

But it's impossible not to look at that and kind of what he brings to the table as a compliment to the way McDavid plays. And it kind of reminds me a little bit of, like we had this conversation a few podcasts ago, you and I where we were talking about how Pavelski and Robertson, for example, help round out Rupa Hintz's game because without them, he'd kind of be a bit more of a one-trick pony

in terms of he's going to try to attack you up the rush pretty much every time he gets the puck. And when it works out and he gets through, it's going to look great. But if he misses the net or if it doesn't go in, it's probably going to be coming back the other way. And then all of a sudden, you've lost possession, and it makes you susceptible defensively.

And McDavid can afford to play that way when pull your armies on the ice with him because I think everyone has full confidence that he's going to give multiple efforts and keep the puck in the offensive zone beyond just that first shot, beyond just that first shot. And that makes him so immensely valuable to McDavid.

And even further to that, I would say, like I think hockey would be a better sport if more people recognize why Pull Yarvey's good and why he's effective and give him more love for that. So what do you see that? Like what do you say specifically that he does that makes himself effective? Okay. So the thing he doesn't do is score at a higher rate. So I don't really think that he's a high-end shooter by NHL standards.

He doesn't have, you know, maybe the same kind of offensive instincts that the really top guys have. He's pretty good, right? But going through his elite prospects profile, like he scored 20 more than 20 goals once in his adult life. And that's when he, the first year when he went back to Liga. So he's not going to be a guy who's going to score, I don't know, 30, 40 goals like, you know, his buddy Patrick Lainey. But then they're completely different kind of players. Like everything that Linae lacks, Polar Yarvi has, right? You put them together.

They'd actually be like the perfect hockey player. Well, remember that dominant finish line with Sebastian. out like that was you know one of the most perfect lines we had at that level at the the world juniors yeah it was and i think you're totally right last year he he shot around 13% and then now he's come back down to under nine percent this year and even the most recent game against the abs over the weekend on saturday like mac david set up a couple great chances for him and and he had pretty much an open net and he either missed it or darsigember made the save and i understand how that pisses people off but for each one of those he does like five more subtle things that make a real

difference. And for me, what I see with him is he, and I respect this so much, he is a player who has a keen understanding of his own strengths and weaknesses as a player. Like often you see guys, especially that have either had success or coming into the league with draft pedigree or, you know, have been the best player at pretty much every level they've played at prior. They come in and they're trying to do all that same stuff over and over again, even if it's not working just because that's the way they're programmed or because they sort of believe that they should be playing that way. And for him, like, you're never going to see him carrying the puck up the ice. Like pretty much as soon as he gets it in the defensive zone or neutral zone, he's instantly

looking to give it to McDavid or one of his teammates or even like a darn old nurse if he's on the ice with him to try and carry the puck up for him because he realizes that's probably not a strength of his game. And so he gets the puck off to someone who can carry it more more efficiently. And as soon as he does that, he basically makes a B-line straight for the net where he can stand in front of the crease cause havoc, he used his frame. And I love that so much about his game that he really has that sort of distinct understanding of what he can and can't do.

And he plays within those boundaries and he doesn't try to try to get crazy and try to do all this stuff that he just doesn't have the skills for. So this reminds me of a conversation I have with a player that I coached this year, who's from Eastern Europe, let's say. And then she told me that in her country, a lot of players, when you ask them what their game is like, don't start talking to you about their weaknesses, which is probably not the best mindset to have, whereas if you talk to maybe more North American players, they're going to start with their strength.

So it might be a cultural thing. It might be just a personality thing. And I think for a player like that, it's a good thing to be aware of your weaknesses and know what you're not good at. But also, I think that's where good coaching comes in, where somebody can, you know, come up to you and say, look, you know, you've never scored 20 goals at the NHL level yet, but here's here are some ways for you to get more pucks in good areas, but also here are some ways for you to waste fewer pucks.

Because I think the thing of Pollyarvi that legitimately does frustrate people is that he's a guy that, you know, when he has this kind of grade A or great B looks, like he's not the most clinical, right? And maybe it doesn't cost you as much in hockey as it does in soccer, let's say, because it's easier to get the puck back. You know, there are more changes to possession. A bad shot doesn't lead to, you know, a goal kick, whatever it is. But I think legitimately it is an area that he can get better at.

And, you know, hopefully he is going to get some direction and some information in those areas. And then we will see him continue to drive play and, you know, shut plays down defensively. But all of a sudden he's got a finishing look. And then, you know, he can become literally the next year, letting, you know, to be a Selky contender because he's scoring 25 goals, 30 goals, in addition to doing all the other stuff. Well, it's funny. You mentioned those sort of offensive instincts for kind of how they're not necessarily the most pure conventional. Like he's a thing that I find very endearing. It's obviously not the most effective approach, but like every time he comes down the wing, if he's got a bit of

space, he's trying to just slap shot the puck into the back of the net, as hard as he possibly can. And I find that to be kind of an endearing throwback element of his game. But yeah, Like, his puck pursuit is absolutely electrifying. Like he's one of the best forjerkers in the league. He's relentless. He gives multiple efforts. He causes so many of these deflections that sort of lead to loose buck opportunities where McDavid can kind of skate into it and use his speed.

And that, I think, provides them with additional opportunities. I was looking at Micah's heat map for him since Woodcroft took over. And the offensive zone is just one big red blob of offense. And it's particularly highly concentrated in that premium real estate around the net. and that like their expected goal rate with pull your RV on the ice is just absolutely ridiculous. And I guess beyond this season, he's an RFA again this summer. So he's going to need a new deal. He was playing on kind of like a prove-a-deal that brought him back to the NHL that was clearly a great value for the Oilers over the past two years.

I'm going to be really fascinated to see how they truly value him. And it'll be very telling based on what his next contract's like because you'd like to think that they realize what they have in him and how he compliments McDavid and sort of how important his defensive value is to this team is currently constructed and that they're just going to try to lock him in for the rest of his prime basically at what'll still be a great figure because defensive players that don't score a ton typically don't get paid appropriately. But at the same time, it's Ken Holland and it's Edmonton. And if you told me that they wind up selling low on him or not valuing him properly, I would believe that as well.

So I'm going to be very curious to see sort of how his next contract looks and how the Oilers view him as a part of their future plans. Yeah, I mean, there is like another gear to his game that nobody's seen yet. And that's really what scares me a little bit because, you know, if he doesn't find himself in the right situation, like we might never see that. That's true. Yeah. Well, I'm going to do a full video breakdown on the stuff we've been talking about here on on EPier inside this week. So if you're a subscriber, you can look forward to that. And every deep playoff run starts with building an amazing team.

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online today. Shopify.com slash Bluewire. Yeah, I think we covered everything that I wanted to and pull the R.B. Let's do the thing that you've been bugging me about for for weeks now, Cole Cawfield. You want to talk about him and Marty St. Louis and sort of the developments in his game over the past, whatever, two months or so since Marty St. Louis took over. So let's smoothly segue because I think Cole Cawfield is a player who we're seeing, you know, a big jump since the coaching change in Montreal. Right.

And there was this clip that circulated recently on Twitter. It's Mitch Jigar, who was a KHL video coach. You kind of put that thing together where basically it was St. Louis and Caulfield standing kind of next to each other after a team practice. You know, as the practice is winding down, they're standing side by side. And then St. Louis was kind of motioning something about how to play on the half wall. So St. Louis is a lefty. He did play on the half wall most of his NHL career with great effect, which I'll get to later.

But Caulfield is a player who I think, you know, a little bit raw in that area. So he has the vision, he has the hands, he has a shot, but he doesn't have maybe a clearly defined idea of what he wants to do from the half wall aside from just shooting, right? Like let's say Oviwood. So St. Louis was, you know, we don't have the audio on the clip, unfortunately, because it was. film from far away. But he was showing Kofield how to pump fake that one timer, take a step into the middle, and then shoot behind both the D who's flexing out to get into the shooting lane, but also the goalie who's pushing across from left to right.

And then so you go back on that goalie far side. And I think it was like the very next game, Koffield scores on that exact move. And that to me is such a great example of. good coaching, right? Because it's not just about like motivating players, but it's actually giving them some additional tools that they can drop into their game right away. Because as a former skill player, as a Hall of Famer,

St. Louis has such a good understanding of like the raw tools that Caulfield is working with. And now you're able to make like a very small software tweak. And then all of a sudden you got a player who has much more nuance in his game and who's a lot more effective. Yeah, well, he's got the relatability, obviously, as an undersized player who found great success and had to maximize, you know, his opportunities in that regard with the puck. But I think I'm actually impressed by, you know, there's, there's so much that goes into being an effective NHL coach from like motivation to player management to making adjustments to actual tactical stuff in terms of X's and O's. But I think just the mentality that we've already seen from Marty St. Louis in terms of clearly understanding.

sort of the personnel he has in terms of, all right, I need to get the most out of these guys. Like, we need to make this work and letting them succeed by putting them in a position to succeed, I think is going to serve him really well just beyond this season. And it's going to help the players that he gets to work with moving forward, right? Like, obviously it's Caulfield right now. But I think that mentality and sort of offensive approach is going to serve him really well. And is certainly a pretty nice change for. for the Canadians, I'd say, based on what they were working with prior to that.

So the interesting thing is not a lot of skill players end up coaching, especially, you know, the really successful ones. I think, what do you say? It's tough to teach players that just don't have the skills or don't see the game the way that you probably did intuitively. Like, it's tough to relay that. Like we saw with Wayne Gretzky, when it's coaching the code, it's like, all right, like, yeah, just go be Wayne Gretzky. Well, most players probably cannot do that. So if that's all you've got, it probably won't make you a very effective communicator. I would say it's more of a two-prong problem.

The first is what you just said. Like if when you know how to do something, you might not be able to communicate it in a way that helps others, you know, do it as well as you do. That's the first thing. The second thing is if you're a perennial all-star or if you're a Hall of Famer and you got like $10, $50 million in the bank, I honestly, in that position, I wouldn't come back and be a head coach. It's just, it's not a very good lifestyle. And you've earned, you know, all the golfing time or all the family time that you can get after your great playing career.

So just from a purely kind of pragmatic reason, a lot of these great players, like even if they like to teach, even if they like to share the knowledge, even if they're good at it, they don't do it because it doesn't make sense for them, right? All right. Okay, so let's get into a bit deeper then. So Caulfield started the year with one goal in his first 30 games. He's got 17 in 27 games under Marty St. Louis now. And basically since that coaching change, he's kind of, you know, he's been everything we'd hope to be all along. But honestly, he's also been everything. We had good reason to expect him to be after what he showed us in a small sample last postseason, especially in terms of, you know, his ability to get quality shots. and then turn them into sustainable offense, right? And so I knew this was going to be a topic that we were going to be doing because you really want to talk about it. And so I spent a couple hours doing a big deep dive on it.

I went back and I watched every single shot at empty stake in the season to just try and get a better sense of whether there really is a visible sort of tactical change in terms of his approach or where he's getting shots from how he's taking them, what's happening basically, right? And I was pleasantly surprised to see that there has. has been like a fundamental night and day shift in that like you get that demarcation. I think it kind of actually started a couple, couple of games before the firing.

I think he had a game against the devils or something like that before Marty Sandel, he even took over. And he was doing a lot of the stuff that he's been doing more recently. But what I noticed is that the biggest adjustment is it's just made life so much more easier for him. A significant source of that offense has come in just him getting out. in transition and attacking downhill off the rush with space so much more often than he had been. So I tracked all the shots. In the 30 games under DeS charm, he had 74 shots on goal and

129 attempts. Over those 129 tries, by my count, 26 of them came off the rush. In the 27 games under Marty St. Louis, he's had 140 shot attempts. 49 of them have come off the rush. So basically we're saying that twice as often on a per game basis, he's getting what I would describe as the most dangerous element of his game, which is if you can get him in space in a scoring opportunity and let that shot function, that's what I want to do. And so the fact that he's been able to do so is great. Now, I'm not sure how much of that is him just feeling himself, how much of it is his coach allowing him to get out and attack aggressively. How much of it is his teammates doing a better job of getting him the puck there? But whatever the impetus is behind it, it really,

really is striking to see just how much more often he's getting in these dangerous opportunities to shoot. And so I think that is highly encouraging for me moving forward. Yeah. And I would give a lot of credit to the people around him now. You know, he's playing with better alignment. So he's playing more with Suzuki instead of playing with like La Jolla Feng or Ryan Paling or, you know, you name it, right? He's playing on a legit pop line. And also, Montreal's playing a way that, you know, the Ds are getting a little bit more active. They're making more passes in transition dirt.

They've got more of a rush game now than they did. So that's going to help Caulfield. And at the same time, Caulfield is getting pucks on a regular basis. He's feeling it more. His, you know, risk taking is more dialed in because he feels the puck. And so, yeah, like, you know,

I don't think he's gotten better in the sense that, like, all the stuff that we're seeing now, he had it at the beginning of the year. But he's just he wasn't in an environment to use those talents. And I really want to go back to St. Louis for a second because the one thing that I think at that age of development, and I work a lot with players kind of in their early 20s, late teens or early 20s. And the best thing that a coach can do for you at those ages is to give you information that shortens your or that steepens your learning curve. So what I mean by that is, you know,

I think we've talked to the past about how good Kuturov is on the power plate, let's say from the right plank. And, you know, so I studied Kuturov and I was just amazed at all the things, all the little things you can do to manipulate the PKers and how you move around, how we would get open, how we would, you know, fake pass and shoot or fake shot and pass. And then I went back and looked at Marty St. Louis, Tampa power play goals and power play points. And it was basically the same guy. So between that and watching that clip where St. Louis showing Coffield how to move on the power play,

maybe it was St. Louis that coached Kuturov how to be elite on the power play while there were teammates. And if you look at the goal that Caulfield scored on, that little move where he pumped faked and then stepped into the middle, St. Louis never used that shot, but actually Ovi would use it twice, maybe three times a year, just enough to keep the goalies honest. And remember that St. Louis and Ovi played in the same conference and in the same division for a big chunk of their careers. So I'm sure the impetus for Caulfield's rapid improvement is St. Louis coming to him with a lot of ideas of, okay, this is what worked for me, this is what worked for Kutrov, this is what works

for Ovi, why don't you try that? And then all of a sudden, you get instant buy-in because, you know, these are the best in the business. And having somebody who's been there and done that tell you that, that is super powerful. What's funny, one thing I actually did notice as well is on the powerful opportunities that he was getting at the start of the year, like, I don't, I don't know how much of this was coaching, how much of it was maybe him being in his own head or whatever. But like, he was standing way too far out from his spot.

Like he was firing for no reason, really, for, like probably three or four steps farther out than he probably needed to. And it was kind of like there would be time these times where it was sort of like it was like lethargically just shooting off the back foot almost. And then now you watch it and it's so much more, um, I guess aggressive or there's like a clear plan or motivation behind it where he's getting closer and closer on that left circle. And he's basically just teeing off like routinely. And you're right.

Like his teammates are doing a better job of getting him the puck across seam and stuff. That obviously makes life significantly easier for him. But I just think purely from having a purpose out. there, it seems like he's actually like doing a much more job. And that should be the most simple thing. So I'm not sure how much of that was coaching and how much of that was on him. Well, it's got to be both. But I mean, you get buy in by giving players things that they can use and that can help them today. And then you get intensity by letting them know that their work is not in vain. So, you know, you talk about Caulfield standing off by himself and taking shots from no man's land. What's because

he probably thinks like there's no point in him moving in because he's not going to get the puck. And now he feels completely differently about the players that he's playing with. I mean, when I was looking at this, I didn't even register in real time. But I was like, oh, it's interesting. His shot rate is actually down a little bit under Marty St. Louis. And then it's like, oh, because he was playing 1441 per game under Dusharum. And now he's playing like 18 and a half minutes on a nightly basis. And for all the egregious things, I think Dusharim did in terms of his usage and his tendencies and everything, like playing cool,

call field less on average than Lauren Dauphin and Jake Evans. It's just so inexplicable to me, especially in a loss season where they clearly weren't going to be competitive. And so I think that's obviously it helps when the puck starts going into the net and it kind of empowers. You just keep getting that guy out there, obviously, once you're seeing that immediate return on success. But I just think, yeah, getting your most skilled players out there as often as you can is probably a good recipe for success moving forward for the Canadians. Yeah. And the thing I guess that would tie pulling, Yarvey and Caulfield together is as you see them getting older and getting more experience and getting more

and building their skill set, you'll see them becoming maybe a little bit more selective. Certainly for Poli Yardvi, you know, being indiscriminate in his shooting has held them back. And for Caulfield, you know, developing a little bit more nuance, that's also going to help and become, you know, truly elite. Yeah, I found it to be a very interesting topic and I'm glad I went back and watched all those shots. because I think, you know, when a player pretty much any forward scoring one goal in 30 games on like however many shots he took is a statistical aberration. And it's not like a representation of how good they are. And clearly there's going to be a substantial amount of regression that happens regardless.

Like you or I could have taken over the Montreal Canadians. And I feel pretty confident that Cole Cofield probably would have started scoring more goals just because that's how hockey works. And that's how math works. But I do think it's nice to it's very encouraging to see that they're actually. actually is a difference in terms of the shots he's getting and where he's getting them from and all that moving forward because it suggests that like there's a fundamental change. There's a pretty clear formula for success and they're doing a much better job of putting him in a position to do those things moving forward. So yeah, he's probably not a 21% shooter or whatever that he's been under

Marty St. Louis as well. I think there's a happy medium between those two halves of the season. But I think he's certainly a lot closer to this than what we saw at the start of the year. And that bodes well for both him and the team moving forward. So I do think it's a, it's a cool story to see him finally kind of capitalizing on that talent and actually doing the thing that we expected him to do. Yeah. And obviously, I think from what I, what I've heard, St. Louis's future as a head coach is still kind of up in the air, right? And I think this goes back to what I was saying before. I'm sure he loves to coach. I'm sure he loves to work with players. But maybe it could just be a family thing. So, but even at this point, if he comes back, great. If he doesn't come back, you know, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Caulfield.

is going to talk to St. Lee about hockey for however many long, you know, he plays in the league because I think those two really have some chemistry. Yeah. All right. Well, so we did play RV. We did Caulfield. I don't know. I've got a hodgepodge here of topics. I'm, have we talked about, uh, defensemen and reach and sort of that as a, as a skill set in terms of wingspan and ability to, to actively use your stick? Because I do feel like, It's a bit of an underrated component in terms of like in the NBA, in the scouting community, whenever you watch the draft or you read these draft profiles, like it's such a key measurable at the combine in terms of all this player's wingspan and how they can use it defensively

to either block shots or, you know, jump in passing lanes or just make life more difficult for a player while they're dribbling. And in hockey, it seems like for whatever reason we don't necessarily gravitate towards that as much. like we're more interested in whatever shot volume, more ability to skate or this and that. It doesn't really come up that often. And I think part of that is you can have a really long reach, but if you don't know how to use it in terms of anticipation and understanding of the game,

you might be taking a lot of penalties in terms of trying to do it. Like it might not actually be particularly useful if you don't actually know how to use the stick aptly. But at the same time, if you do, I find it to be such a valuable skill. And so many of the defensemen that I seem to be gravitating towards in terms of the actual defensive play are just so good at that these days. So I think we're going to get to a point now where, you know, I would say 10 years ago when drafting defensemen or signing defensemen, the market inefficiency was puck moving ability.

So puck moving ability with the main proxy being points per game, right? So 10 years ago, we were probably there where you would probably outperform your draft spot if you just went for the guy, you know, with the most age and league adjusted points. Then it got to a point where maybe a lot of these guys, we find out that they're only putting up points because they got a good shot or they play a lot of power play minutes. And then at five on five, they're kind of, you know, pretty mediocre. So then we get into microsat, you know, where it's like exit percentage or, you know, entry denial percentage or, you know, those kind of more underlying metrics or, of course,

you know, those more underlying metrics that say, okay, well, even if a guy didn't have a ton of points, let's say like a Jacob Slavin, right, didn't have a ton of points throughout his developmental years, but has all these great underlying stats. And then all of a sudden, he makes the NHL and, you know, he looks amazing. And then I think that the logical next step is, as you said, the biometrics. So not necessarily height, because height is well understood. everybody essentially is able to measure height. I think it's too understood in terms of people caring about it too much. Yeah.

So then it's like wingspan. So wingspan is probably a more applicable way to think about length than height in hockey because players don't really jump. They're more reaching, right? Well, Victor Arvinson sometimes jumps when he's trying to screen the goalie. Yeah, fine. Pretty funny. Yeah.

But, you know, it's the effect in this of jumping in hockey. is debatable. Right. But certainly, you know, if you have a player who's, let's say, six foot and has a wingspan that's like, you know, six five or six seven, then that's a player who may outperform relative to a player who's six foot and also has a six foot wingspan, just because there's more of him, right? And then the other, I would say, biometric thing. And this is something that I think now we're getting into an area that I'm less familiar with is a body's potential to gain weight. So we know that certain kids, for whatever reason, they're easily able to bulk up and just other people just can't, right? There's probably a genetic component to it. Certainly it's you can influence

it via nutrition or training, but there are just some guys who are like 5-7, but all of a sudden they can play at 185 or 190. And then there are other guys, they're drafted at 6-1, but like, They stay at 160. The entire career is in and then they get muscle off the puck. Have you watched any Matthias Samuelson? Not since his draft year. So I watched his shifts at the program in his draft year. So a player that I've been,

I know people like when they listen to podcasts and we talk about random guys. Like our conversation about Logan O'Connor and Niqua, a couple podcasts ago was very well received. So Matia Samuelson, his defensive metrics haven't fully caught. yet. Like, if you just look at his impact, it's, it's nothing particularly great. But I suspect that they will once the team gets better around him, because what I've seen is one of the most genuinely annoying one-on-one defenders in the league. Like, his ability to just be a nuisance with disrupting pretty much everything with his reach is such a valuable tool. I saw him

compared to a Rasmuser Seline in with a brain, basically. And that cracked me up because he Clearly, you know, he's got the same physique, but he doesn't make the same kind of boneheaded mistakes in terms of randomly wandering away from his net and leaving someone completely unguarded. And he's basically, I really enjoy watching him play in his own zone because he uses that reach so effectively. And I think he's a player we're going to be hearing about a lot more moving forward. Obviously, there's more dynamic and exciting talents on the sabres that are being kind of coming up over the next couple of years.

But I think he's someone that's going to provide them with immense value because of that one particular skill. Yeah. So see, like that's a good example of players that were at one point overvalued and then maybe are now even a little bit undervalued because I remember his draft here at the program. I think it was him. I think it was Alex Vlasic, Cam York, and then Dom Finnsori. Those were the four Ds on that line that had kind of like the most pro interest. wildly different player types wildly different players so uh camyork went i think the camyork go first

in that group oh yeah for sure he was yeah like the the flyers took him kind of around that early teens range uh at the draft of Vancouver that was at in 2019 i believe yeah so uh undersized guy uh very smart with the puck good skater in all four directions um makes good reads um you know he was their main power play quarterback with Jack Hughes and Cole Cofield. So he got a ton of points. After that, I think then like it was like last no, it was Samuelson and then Vlasic, but those are two big shutdown defensemen, not the kind of players that we were looking for in Toronto at the time.

You know, we were all in on kind of like the smaller skill guys that could move the puck. Um, you know, like I, I didn't hate their games, but like I just, I wasn't really, I didn't understand the nuances of what they brought necessarily. And then Dom Fensori, even more undersized than Cam York, maybe a little bit more risky with the puck, more of a second power play guy, but incredibly good in transition at five on five. So he's a guy that Carolina took him later and he might end up playing some games, especially in that system. So we'll see. But I think we're, yeah, we're gone to a point where maybe, you know, Samuelson and Vlasic, there were bigger, lower scoring guys that, you know, the analytics community didn't like as much. maybe we're going to see that they're going to outperform that, you know, that expectation.

Well, I was at I, uh, I don't often go to games just because I'm usually just sitting at home, just trying to flip between like eight games at once because that's the way the NHL likes to schedule them. And so I just can't commit to leaving the house on a busy night and watching one game in particular live. But, uh, it was like a pretty quiet night. The blues were in town to play the Canucks. And so I was like, you know what? I'm just going to go sit in the press box and watch this one. And just having that kind of bird's eye view from the press box and seeing late in the game, the blues were like trying to basically close it out. They had a one goal lead. And they had Colton Farako and Ryan O'Reilly out there in the defensive zone. And just from that vantage point,

you could like see how basically just the two of them could cover the full width of the defensive zone with their two sticks. And it was just like the Canucks just couldn't, couldn't move the puck into a dangerous area, even though they had an extra attacker out there. And they were clearly pushing to try and tie the game up because of that. And I know it's like a very specific in each example, obviously, but then those guys do so many other great things beyond having that wingspan. But I just, it really stuck in my brain in terms of just seeing that kind of live and seeing it from that geometry and being like, wow, like this must be just such a pain in

the butt to play against. What I would say is, you know, height and reach and weight have never been a bad thing in hockey. The only problem is that when you put too much emphasis on those factors, you may get some guys who are legitimately good defensively, who are legitimately good at making stops and forcing turnovers, but then who immediately give possession back to the other team by dumping it out of the zone or just kind of making the prucks somebody else's problem. And I think with Samuelson specifically, like, you know, he is a bigger guy, but he's played so long in a more possession driven system with skilled players that he probably has enough

skills to at least make a five foot or 10 foot continuation play. and maybe that's good enough. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you have to view the full, full package, right? Like if a guy is really good at one thing, but then the results keep being bad, it's like, well, maybe either that thing's not as important as we thought or for whatever reason, the stuff they're doing poorly is ultimately kind of outweighing that one good thing, right?

And so you're right. Like, I think that was kind of always the misconception where I remember the, whatever, the 2012 Kings and then people were like, oh, see, like a big physical team. Like, they're actually good. they're winning games. It's like, well, when your big players are Anzay Kopitar and Jeff Carter and this and that and you actually have like skill and they can do other stuff, yeah, all things being equal, I'll take the bigger player because it allows you to play more with more versatility. You can basically play different matchups and you can get away with playing different styles.

But when you're just basically gravitating towards that and being like, all right, I don't care if this person can't actually do anything with a puck, that's when it becomes a problem. So this is this really, I think, is an area where like kind of that meta game of scouting or, or player, you know, player personnel or, you know, team building. I think that's going to change in the next few years because it's almost like in that, like in a boxing example, at some point, you know, the difference in technique or speed is not going to be enough to help a light middleweight be to heavy. weight. It's just he might be able to land more punches. He might be able to dance around the heavyweight. But, you know, he's always, he's always one punch away from being knocked out. And then the heavy weights able to take on, you know, just, just kind of diffuse that power. So, you know, like, obviously, I still like players who are very good technically or tactically, but, you know, in a full contact sport like hockey,

sometimes, you know, more mass or more reach does win the day, even though you don't look as pretty or, you know, you're not as smart. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can win in many different ways, right? I think that's, that's something we've learned. I've become such a, such an eye test guy over the years. I just like, yeah, it's, I mean, obviously, you know, we're using, I think using numbers and you, using various measures and on ice impacts and stuff is still incredibly. valuable. And if you're not using it, you are completely missing out on the picture. And it can help

guide you towards a lot of trends and stuff. Right. But just sort of seeing the way guys play, I think has become so much more interesting to me because you know, you pick up these kind of nuances or little details in their game. And it's sort of, it makes you want to like almost like fix a player or whatever. Like, you know how you were talking about like, I guess the inverse of what you were saying with Pooley Arby where it's like, oh, he has this another gear. And if he goes into a bad situation, maybe we won't ever see him realize it. And it's the opposite for me when I see a player with with potentially poor metrics, but with like visible skills at doing something really well. I'm like trying to game plan or drop a roadmap for for utilizing them most effectively

by putting them in a position where they can kind of cover for the weaknesses and use those strengths. Well, it's funny when you said that you become an eye test guy because it's like how that that saying goes. It's like you either die a hero or. I know. What have I become? So good.

All right, Jack. Well, this was a blast. I think we covered a lot of the main topics we wanted to get to, right? Was there anything else that you had on your own? No, I think it's been 45 minutes. I think this is perfect. And before I go, you know, normally you would ask me to plug something. But I'm not going to plug something, but it seems like I've been on here often enough.

But what I will say is I'm really grateful for all the people that by my, e-books, all the people that sign up for my newsletter, the private clients that get in touch with me so I can work with them because, you know, the past two years probably like a really difficult context to work in hockey, especially if you don't work for a team. But actually, I found that I've done some of my best work in the past two years. And it's all thanks to, you know, being in the public sphere and talking regularly with people who have similar but not quite identical views as I do and also working with a lot of people that really trust what I do and trust me as a person. So I'm just really grateful for all those people.

And I hope to be around and to put up great stuff to help you and to give you value in the near future. Would you say that a lot of that creative stimulation has come from your appearances in the PDO cast here? I always leave the PDO cast greater than I was before. Awesome. Well, hopefully the listeners feel the same way. This is a blast, man. I'm glad we got to catch up. And I'm sure we'll have you back on once the once the playoffs, once the playoff start and once we start getting into like specific matchups and we can really just key in on two teams and kind of nerd out about the X's and sort of what's going on. We'll get you back on and we'll do some deep times then.

Oh yeah. Like once the playoff matchups are said, I got some big plans for the kind of stuff I want to put out there. Sweet. I'm looking forward to it and we'll chat then. So until that, have a good one. See you. All right. That is going to be it for today's episode of the Hockey PEOCast. As always, thank you for listening. Sorry for the little break with the PDOCast in terms of not having you any episodes out over the past couple weeks.

Like I said at the top, we needed a little breather and a little regroup. But we're going to be back at it here and hopefully putting out some fun shows. I'm really excited. I can't wait for the start of the playoffs. I think that first leading right into it once we know the matchups right before the game start. and then the two weeks or whatever where there's basically just three, four, five super meaningful, exciting, high-intensity games on every single night is the best part of the calendar year. So looking forward to that.

Hopefully we'll have a lot of opportunities to churn out a bunch of fun content with that. So looking forward to that. In the meantime, if you want to help us out, you can do so by leaving a rating and review for the PDOCAST, wherever you typically listen to the show. A lot of you have done so already. Each one's greatly appreciated. So thank you for taking the time to help out and spread the love. We'll see when we're back next.

Next week, I am actually going to Florida to our friend Daryl Belfrey's coaching workshop. He's been on this show a couple times before. We recently did a really fun one where we kind of nerded up about individual offensive skill sets and sort of how to get better at creating goals, basically. So I believe it was an episode title different and better. So if you haven't checked that out for whatever reason, certainly go back in the archives, listen to that. And we'll see if while I'm there,

I'm able to get Daryl back on. If not, we're going to try to scoop up some other people that are there for the conference to come on the show and talk about various topics. So looking forward to that as well. So in the meantime, thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting us. Thank you for rating and reviewing.

And we'll be back soon. So until then. The Hockey P.DOCAST with Dmitri Filippovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey pdfast.