The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 439: Round Two Matchups and Adjustments

Episode Date: May 17, 2022

Shayna Goldman joins the show to help preview a pair of second round matchups - the Battle of Alberta and the Hurricanes vs. the Rangers. We discuss what we saw from those teams in round one, and key factors to look out for in round two.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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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 Pediocast with your host, Dimitri Phil. Welcome to the Hockeyedio cast. My name is Dimitri Filipovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Shana Goldblen.

Shana, what's going on? Just excited to be here and talk about round two. Yeah. So here's the plan. We're going to cover Flame Stars and Rangers Hurricanes. Well, I guess Rangers Penguins and then preview Rangers Hurricanes because those are the series that I didn't get to in the last show just because we hadn't seen the game. sevens by then, but I promise people would get to them eventually. And so those series begin on

Wednesday night, and we're recording this on a Tuesday afternoon. So hopefully people will have chance to listen to our preview by then. So let's start with Flame Stars, because even though it certainly wasn't the most aesthetically pleasing series in round one, I did think it was an interesting one to think about and discuss, because if you're making a short list of players that enter the postseason with either the most pressure on them or the most approved to people. I think Johnny Goodrow was very near the top of that list. He was coming off a regular season where he deserved legitimate hard trophy consideration.

He led the league in 5-on-5 scoring. He had 115 points. But anytime you bring it up, you get trolls coming out of the woodwork, pointing out the fact that, all right, let's see what happens in the postseason when the game slows down and teams are able to lead on him a bit more physically because he clearly hasn't been able to get the job done in the past. And it's, you know, there's flaws with just that type of logic obviously. And it's, I think, being a bit intentionally obtuse. But at the same time, it wasn't completely unjustified. Like, if you just look at his scoring numbers in past both seasons, they've clearly

dried up more than they have in the regular season. And so I think everyone wanted to see him carry over that success. And in round one against the stars, it was a choppy series. But I think we, we got to see the full Johnny Goodroo experience in a good way where he really was the best player on the ice. Yeah, it's interesting because like heavy hockey is something that gets talked about all the time. And, you know, there is a conversation to be had if there are certain players who do or don't perform well in the postseason. And if it has to do with that grinding style and a player like Johnny Godreau is all about speed and, you know, puck moving abilities. So it was nice to seem to shine.

And I do think it's important to mention like this was the best position he was into succeed. This is the best team he's been on, you know, the best line mates he's had that entire top line was super styler. So I think he ended with two goals and six assists for eight points. I'm pretty sure all five is five on five points were primary. So that's like a great way for him to show what he can do. Like this is a player who's one of the best in the league, a generating offense and transition. He can carry the puck up the ice.

I think only Jack Hughes at five on five had better zone, better zone entry rate of carrions. And this is someone who legitimately is one of the best passers in the league. So it really works out well for him that like this is the year the flames were good because he had such a good season and he was a huge reason why the flames were so good. And yeah, like this series, I think we all expected more of Calgary. And you could put a little bit of it on other players in like at the top of their lineup.

Like Matthew Kachuk, you know, his play wasn't as good until game seven. But Johnny Goddrault consistently was good. And he was one of the more exciting parts of the series when there were a couple other players. Maybe we hope would shine a little bit more. He still did the entire way through. So if anyone had any questions, I think he shut them up completely with that overtime winner. Well, on the beautiful part about sports is it's, it really, it's easy to change the narrative, right? Like he won a good post season and all of a sudden he's going to be a playoff hero and it's going to be in the distant rearview mirror.

And he started a bit slow in game one, even though the flames won that game. Like it was it was kind of a lethargic effort from pretty much everyone. Like they scored early and then that was basically it. But from that point forward, he was indisputably the investigator on the ice for either team. Goal, he's obviously notwithstanding. And we're going to get into Jay Gondinger here later. But here's some stats for you. With him on the ice of five on five, the flames outshot the stars 76 to 47.

he had 50 shot attempts, 25 shots on goal, and 12 high danger chances, all of which were the best in the series for any skater. He had, I tweeted out this graphic, he had 35, 5-1-5 shot assist in the series. That was nearly twice as much as anyone else. Matthew Kuchuk was second with 19 and three times as much as anyone on the stars. And so, you know, he finished with the eight points, the two goals. He scored the series winner with a beautiful shot in the game seven overtime. But honestly, I feel like just looking at those stats, even though eight points and seven games is good by any measure, it doesn't really do justice to how much his fingerprints were all over this series offensively. Because, you know, if not for a superhuman effort by Jake Ottinger, which is one of the best goalie performances, we've ever seen from start to finish in a seven game series like this, I feel like he easily could have doubled that point total.

And we'd just be talking about like him right up there with Connor McDavid in terms of the best round one performances. but, you know, it was a bit, it was a bit tempered just because of how great Audinger was, but the chances he was creating on a regular basis were phenomenal. And it's everything you want to see from Jenny Goddra. Yeah, it absolutely was. And that's like, I think what you mentioned, too, like his points only tell you so much about his postseason story. I think the same is true for the regular season because we could look at him and be like,

wow, look at where you ranked in points, but then you go a little further and you go, what percentage was primary? What percentage of his points, you know, how many times did he have a point on a goal that was scored by the flames or how many goals was he on the ice for and things like that at five on five and how many primary points he had like at the end of the regular season uh i looked into who the best passer was and he was the player you know all situation you see him like rate pretty highly and you see the mac david's up there and the jonathan he were those and when you really go into five on five it was so clear how high above the rest he was you know with his ability to pass from behind the net

you know i think i don't think we talk about that and not like how much that can hurt a goalie when someone can get a pass off quickly from behind the net. And it does help that he played with good shooters. Matthew Kuchuk is an all-around force. And Elias-Land-Hol's just standing in one spot at all the times waiting for it. With like the perfect finishing ability. It's exactly what Godrault could have needed. You know, it takes two to score a goal if you're talking about the passer.

But he put his line meets in such a good position to succeed. So you could look at his entire season and go, wow, this is a player who the points only scratch the surface and the same holds true here. And he really was the difference maker. So it's like once again, here he is the MVP of the flames. Well, here's what I'm curious about spinning it forward to kind of think about how this is going to look in round two against the oilers. You know, you mentioned, I thought you did a really fun piece kind of previewing for sports. I'm using the sport logic data around to kind of like keys to the series or whatever.

And you had a note in there, which you said on this podcast already where Goodroll was like a top five player basically in the league at both carrying the puck into the zone and getting dangerous chances off of the rush when he did so. And in this round two matchup, I'm very curious to see how the Oilers try to slow him down in that regard. I'm not sure there's necessarily a right answer. You know, since they made their coaching change, we talk a lot about how Woodcroft took over from Tippett. One of the other big changes was his assistant coach Dave Manson took over for Jim Playfair, and he's kind of responsible for the handling of their defensive assignments. And since that coaching change, they basically leaned on Cody C, C, and Darnel Nurse to the type of extreme defensive deployment that, you know,

we'd seen in the past with like how the sharks would lean on Mark Edward of Lassick in his prime or like how the Bruins used to just like use the Dinochara against other teams of best players whenever they possibly could. And those guys played really well in those roles. Now, just from watching round one against the Kings, I thought, you know, Darnall Nurse came into the postseason with a bit of an injury. His mobility didn't necessarily look up to his usual standards, I thought, in terms of the way he was moving.

And he was giving up more carries than I'm expecting from him. And so I assume the oilers are going to stick true to form and just basically use CC and nurse whenever they can against this flames top line to try to at least keep them relatively in check. And I'm just not sure how well they're going to be able to contain them. And that's going to make a big difference here because, you know, as well as Mike Smith played in round one, I don't think it's fair to expect him to keep saving 94% of the shots and replicating what Jake Ottinger did himself against the flames. And so if the opposing goalie stops making saves with this frequency and Goodrope keeps making these types of chances happen, there's going to be a lot of goals in the future for the flames. Yeah, this series has a lot of potential because I think it's going to be a lot more wide open for each side than it was in round one because Dallas can slow things down. And we know LA can slow things down, even though yes, it's a very young blue line.

Like it's what makes both of these teams click. So now you're going to have it. It's not like the flames are a bad defensive team by any stretch, but they can play that uptempo pace. we know the oilers can. And they definitely made some smart adjustments. And you can see things like Connor McDavid going down low and the center getting into it. Like that's something that they weren't doing before. So there's improvements across the board for the oilers in all three zones.

And that's great and wonderful. But like at the end of the day, this is still the same oilers team. And they never adjust their goal tending. And no, I don't expect Mike Smith to be that good. I do expect him to make mistakes. And then the flames have a lot of players that can really make them pay for it. So what makes for, I think, an interesting battle is how the flames split up top competition. You know, Elias Linholm does go against top competition, and so does Mikhail Backland.

So you have two very good options here. If you go backland, you're going defense first. And if he's playing with someone like Blake Coleman, we know that's one of the best four checkers in the league. He shoots the puck a ton and he knows that of playing these situations. You know, if the pressure rises, that's someone you can trust anywhere on the ice against anybody. So that makes for an interesting option to try to shut down McDavid. But on the other hand, they could go Elias Lin-Holmes line. And if they do, you really do have the potential for speed versus speed.

And maybe some people don't want to see a track meet. But I think that there is something interesting to it if we get to see Goodrow and McDavid head to head because these are two players who can take over games. And if you have any doubts about that at all, watch McDavid in game seven of that round one series. But it's super interesting when you think about that because if you're the oilers, how do you strategize for it? Is it better to say the flames have their best stacked on one line so we should as well? And Leon Drescattle, we know it's not 100%.

And him at 50%, he's still creating offense better than a ton of other players. but he's not moving very well. Or do you split them back up and hope that Backland can take one line, Linholm can take the other line, and you can try to beat them another way, like just by, you know, the power versus power matchup on one hand and try to have your best forward breakthrough

against very good defensive line the other way. So they have options here that make it kind of intriguing, but I'm betting that this is going to be an exciting series either way. Yeah, yeah, I think there's going to be quite a bitter goal. When you said, I know there's people who don't want to see a track meet, are those exclusively in HL? head coaches because I feel like pretty much everyone else does. I mean, I guess maybe there's hockey purists out there, quote unquote, that they want to see a two one grinded out physical game.

But yeah, I want to see these teams flying around and creating off the rush. Like, that's when they're at their best. I guess, you know, the flames are going to have home ice in this series. So they more times than not will be able to dictate those matchups. So we'll see how they choose to go about it. Certainly if Chris Tanev's going to be out, I'm not sure what, you know what his status is in terms of he didn't play game seven. It seemed like it said everyone's an option, though, that morning and then he didn't play at night. But like, what do you really hear from coaches? Like you could look at any matchup and they'll be like, oh, this player is day to day. And it turns out they have how many broken bones and punctured this. So, you know, there's only so much

to take from that. So that's a big one. Also, sorry, who expected Michael Stone to be in the playoffs and doing well while Mark Stone's at home? Like, what universe are we in? Well, M. Stone. Em Stone's killing it. That's exactly what I expected. Yeah. Yeah, he's, I love it because he has such a one-track mind. Like when he's out there, he's just going to try to hammer the puck as hard as he can every single time. And usually it like hits the backboards.

Like it's not even anywhere near the target, but he's going to go for it out. Yeah, I mean, listen, we'll see on TANF. It's the NHL playoffs. So if I found out that he had like a limb amputated and he was in the lineup that same night, I'd be like, yep. And blocking shots. Yes. That's him. He's going to play.

Yeah. So I think there's going to be, you know, it's going to be a lot on the plate of Rasm Sanderson and Noah Haniff in this series in that regard. You know, part of the complicating factor is as we saw in game six and seven of that Oilers King series is like, if you're the flames, you can devise this game plan to be like, all right, we prefer these matchups. But Woodcroft did such a good job of basically cycling McDavid, like with everyone. Like, he played 21 and 24, 5-1 to 5 minutes in those two games respectively. And so if he's going to be out there, every other shift, like, you're going to create these opportunities for him to, even if, you know, you're trying to match up Lynn Homer, you're trying

to match up back on against them. If McDavid's just constantly out there, there's going to be shifts where he's out against other units that he can potentially exploit a little bit more. So there's certainly a lot of interplay there. I think from the Oilers perspective defensively, I'd strongly consider using Brett Kulak as much as I possibly could in this series because he's clearly their best rush defender and he look fantastic in round one. I shuddered to think what Duncan Keith is going to look like in this series against either Godreau or even Mangiopani because these guys have so much speed off

the rush and they were able to get away with it against the Kings because the Kings just didn't have the shooting talent. Like they were creating all of these rush opportunities and they were flying in with speed. But then they basically get in the offensive zone and just to kind of throw this muffin on Mike Smith and he'd be able to stop it. And that's not going to happen in this series. So if you have a offensemen out there is just like letting guys waltz into the zone. I think it's going to be a real problem for the Oilers. Yeah, the Kings are a team that like at five on five, I think, had the lowest, like goals to expect expectations. Like they just could not finish all year. This was a problem. And it definitely hurt them to lose a player like Victor Arvison or, you know, and it changed up the

lines a bit. But at the end of the day, this is a season wide problem. And then on the power play, I think that they were second in like goals below expected too. So they had a lot of problems with finishing. And now you're going up, Mike Smith. against a team that definitely does not have those problems unless there's like an other worldly goalie on the other side as we just saw. And Mike Smith is not that. And like I'm, I'm one of the bigger doubters of Mike Smith. And it's because like he can go on these hot streaks. And then if anybody is going to ruin his game, it's not like, oh, he doesn't have support. It's him. It's his mistakes that are going to cost everybody. So like he can't be

taking the same risks that he was before. The Kings couldn't finish so you had that advantage. But no, I agree with Kuluck. You need to have skaters who can skate. Like, it's very simple. In today's game, you have to have defensemen. You have to have mobile defensemen. You can still go for like a big body defender, but they have to be able to skate.

Duncan Keith's skating is not that great at this point in his career. And he's not the most defensively sound. I know he knows what it takes to win and whatever other crap you want to throw at it. But like he is what he is at this point. And they've tried to maximize him. But, you know, it just, it's a very imbalance when you go through like their defense. And that's going to be interesting if they can, continue to go 11 forwards in 7D like they did in game seven with robert coming up.

So that does work and that does give you more opportunities to throw McDavid in every single combination because you don't have four perfect lines that you're going to be rolling. But the one like drawback I have about that is dry sidel. He did play a lot in game seven, but are you going to run the gauntlet in game one and two if he's still nursing something or do you kind of pull his minutes back a little bit? Like then are you basically going 10 forwards plus McDavid is playing as legitimately as

two this time. Like not even he's just being himself. He's just himself plus half of Dreysidal. Yeah. So that's what he is. He's 1.5 McDavid's. Well, and you know what? It's a Dreisdell's credit. He's clearly hurt. And I thought he looked like he was giving one hell of an effort in game seven. You know, there was that one player where he was like hounding someone with the puck in the defensive zone. And he was just basically sticking to them like all the way across the ice and just giving all the effort you could possibly ask for. And I think they're trying to compensate for those physical limitations by just taking him away from the center position because he was struggling so much of the start of the series. And they adjusted by just being like, all right, he's going to play on McDavid's way.

And we're going to try to insulate him this way. And it helped a lot. So it's not ideal for them because you'd like to see him out there, you know, having net positive minutes of his own to lighten the load on McDavid. But it'll be something to watch for sure. I think, you know, when you brought up the flames earlier in terms of like their playing style and how they can get into a track me to what the oil is here, I'm really glad you brought that up because, I mean, over the course of that round one series against the stars, I was seeing a lot of conversation about like, oh,

what do you expect? This is Darrell Sutter hockey. It's like two very boring teams. And I completely disagree with that. Like I think you got to have to give the stars credit for having a game plan and sticking to it and basically trying to willfully drag the flames into the mud with them and kind of grind out these games. But I think the flames can play a pretty fun brand of hockey if they're lined up with

the right opponent, right? Like if they're playing a team that is willing to open it up and actually try to create events and carry the puck and do stuff. Like the flames eyes light up, especially in the neutral zone. You see them, they swarm the puck, they quickly get it back, and then they go back the other way off the rush. They're not just trying to grind out, dump and chase and basically hold onto the puck for 40 seconds and then, you know, change and basically do it all over again.

Like they're trying to actually do stuff. And I think they're going to get that dance partner in this series with the Oilers, because, you know, the Oilers certainly aren't going to approach it the way the stars did. And so I think that's not lead to a much more aesthetically pleasing product here. Yeah, like as much as we look at the flames and go, it's Darrell Sutterhockey, they can beat, you know, their opponents both ways. They can generate off the rush and they can cycle it too. The biggest thing for them is going to be making sure that they have scoring below that top line. And they have the skill to do it.

Like, if you have, I think the last week we saw it, it was Manjipani with Backland and Coleman. And that line clicked. And then you had Jubay playing with Yarn Croc and Tafoli. that line I think has potential, but it does give me a little bit of concern because I think Tyler Foley needs a better passer with him to play at his best, which I don't think we've really seen so far in his time in Calgary.

But still, if they can get some production from their middle six, I think that they're in really good shape to challenge the oilers both ways. They need to slow it down. We know they can do it, but they can play the speed game too. So I think it makes for an interesting matchup.

And as much as we're talking about them playing the speed game, it's not like the Oilers have some dazzling bottom six forwards either. You know, so I think this is, going to be more of that uptempo style than maybe some of the, I guess some of the other series now, like I'm looking at them and I'm trying to think like quickly like, you know, who matches what, but more than round one, I should say at least, it's going to be more up tempo. This isn't just a defensive team going up against a speed team that we just saw happen. This is two teams who can push the pace of play going up against each other. And it should be fun. Like you think of,

I know the regular season, you could throw it out the window when you get to the playoffs, but we've seen Battle of Alberta games in this day and age, not five. years ago, the teams that are, you know, going out right now, and we've seen them have these high scoring games and really exciting ones and chaotic. And that's what I think we're all rooting for here. Like, we want to see the most chaotic matchups possible and hopefully they allow it. Well, and you know, like this flames team, I was thinking, I think part of what the stars gave them trouble with beyond Audinger, obviously, was I think they benefit from playing a team that's like a bit dysfunctional in terms of like, you know, if they're trying these crazy passes or trying

to carry it, all of a sudden it gives them the opportunity to attack defensively and turn that into offense. And for better or for worse, that Starz team, like, they were so programmed to play a certain way. And every player they had was so committed to doing so. There was this one moment in game two that like legitimately, I didn't know whether a laugh or cry. But this, I think it was Joel Hanley, who's like a depth defenseman for the stars. But he had the puck. at center ice and the play had kind of broken down and it was essentially like a three on two for the stars because the flames had gotten caught deep in the offensive zone and instead of exploring something with it or trying to carry the puck into the zone and make a play he like literally

just dumped it in deep and everyone on the stars went off for a change instead of exploring this three on two and it was like yeah this is this is exactly it and so they just got the puck deep and then the flames basically have to do it all over again and and that's not the way they necessarily want to play And so I think they're going to get many more opportunities to to tap into that brand of theirs against the Oilers. And I don't know, I don't know what else there is to say about the stars. Like I've been so critical of their approach and their tactics on this podcast. Clearly, you know, they got to within one goal of round two here.

Like they made it to game seven overtime. It took an insane goalie performance. But they were a massive underdog in this series and they squeezed out pretty much everything they could out of it. So I don't know. It's weird to say it's a massive. of disappointment because this does seem like kind of like a good result for them. But at the same time, when you look at the personnel they had and then the way they chose to

play, like, how can you not feel disappointed? Yeah, no, it's just a style of the stars. And like, you could look at Rick, a bonus team. And like he was the assistant coach in Tampa Bay for a while too. And the lightning were a lot more boring. And they were actually a lot worse defensively while he was behind the bench at the end there because he did play it that more conservative one dimensional approach. And you could see once he left.

And I think I want to say Todd Richards took over for a bit on defense. too. Like they played more of that speed game that this team was built to play because they had the forwards ready to play that. They just needed their defense to back it up a little bit. So it doesn't entirely surprise me that that's the style of play that they're playing in Dallas. And I'm curious to see where they go from here because they have the makings of something really good. They've won the best top lines in the league. They have an elite number one defenseman in Muir Heistin who, you know, I think in game seven two in particular, he absolutely shine. And I think he didn't miss parts of the end of the year. He would have been higher in the Norris conversation,

because he really was before that. And then you have the play of Jake Ottinger. So you have like the fundamentals that you want. You have a strong top line. You have a very good number one defenseman. You have some good depth defenders behind him. And then you have a very good goalie to like build on. But you need more than just having good players.

Like yes, a lot of their players are past their prime. You could see Tyler Sagan was going through it before he broke his foot. Jamie Ben's play is not at that level. Radialop who we know could be so exciting. I mean, that was a terrible season for him. So they have the makings.

if they can bring in a little bit more pop to their lineup. You know, I like the addition of Vladimuskov. That's a great facilitator, but they need more offensive pop. You also need to have the systems to back it up. And I don't think they're ever going to get that like under Rick bonus. I don't see him changing too much to suddenly, you know, to revamp everything at this point in his career. Well, it's all the environment, right?

Like you could see, you could see what Muriel Heisketin could be in that series, right? Like defensively, it's obviously all. there already. Like as a one-on-one defender, he's as good as it gets. He does so many little things where he just kind of like tactically diffuses a potentially scary situation because he like, he's able to kind of chip the puck away from a guy and then all of a sudden retrieve it or get it to his defense partner and all of a sudden they're out of the zone. And it, it all looks so easy. But when you watch other defensemen try to do it, you realize that he's, he's pretty damn good at it. But then in this series, you saw the offensive flashes. I think it was, you know, it was game six.

at home. And then it was game seven, certainly as that game went along, where he almost single had to wield them to victory offensively. Like he had five or six in game seven controlled exits where he basically just took the puck deep in his zone and carried it all the way coast to coast and got it into the opposing zone. And it was bitter sweet in a way because it was so fun to watch, but it was also a reminder of kind of how much more he could be offensively in a better environment. And he's still only turning 23 years old this summer. So it's like he's got a long future ahead of him and the sky's the limit, but he's also in or entering his physical prime here. And you'd like to see them capitalize on that and put him in a position to succeed so that

he is legitimately recognized as being one of the best defensemen up there with, you know, with McCar and with Yossi and Fox because he is that good. He just, he isn't put in a position where he can put up the points to, to garner that type of recognition at this point. Yeah, absolutely. That's it. And there's a couple players you can say that too. Like you could say he should be a Norris caliber defenseman on both ends of the eyes

who is that standout, top of the class. last every single year. And hopefully the next couple years, we do get to see that when he's in his prime. And Rupa Hince is someone who was really close to the Selke race. I don't think he got enough credit for his defensive efforts this year. And one of the problems was he didn't always go up against top competition because they saved that for their third line. And that was a line that you know, they didn't allow much back, but they created absolutely nothing. So you have to decide, do you want that dimension or not, you know, when you try to play defense and in this league, you need to have some dimension to it. If your fourth line doesn't have as much offensive, you know,

capabilities that's one thing, but you have to be able to handle the puck a little bit. So, and then you have a player like Jason Robertson, and that's going to be an interesting one this summer when they try to figure out what he should make and what his next contract is going to look like, but he's someone who could be at the top of the scoring charts too. So they have a couple really good pieces if they can figure out how to supplement that and how to find the right stylistic blend for these players. And obviously you can't just build a team like a coach isn't going to bring in a totally different style based on the players. Like he's like, this is my style. This is what we're going to do and try to like tweak it for.

there, not completely redo it. But when you have the talent and they have those high-end, you know, talents, they should be looking a little bit more. How do we build around you? How do we maximize you? Because everything else can follow. If we have, you know, the cornerstones of the team, we just need to build around that. And I think that has to be their attitude moving forward. Yeah. Well, okay, let's move on from the series. One, like we should give Jake O'Doninger his love. We've kind of mentioned it in passing here. He, for the series, he faced 41 shots per game. he stopped 95.4% of them. He stopped 69 of 74 high danger shots he faced, which is pretty nice.

He gave up 13 fewer goals against and expected depending on the model you use. So he checked both the quantity and the quality boxes. He did pretty much everything he could possibly keep the stars alive and give them a shot to hang around. Now, I will say, like, we were just talking about how the stars might not have put some of their players in a position to succeed. I think they did, their defensive plan was well executed in this, because the flames are kind of such like a north-south team beyond Johnny Goodrow. Like they just try to get the pocket, just go north and try to get to the net and just shoot it as much as they can. And the stars did a good job of like they were kind of gumming up the middle of the ice as the way they have in the past.

They filled lanes. And they were basically just leaving the rest of the stuff for Audinger to gobble up. So he made some ridiculous acrobatic saves and certainly stole a few from the flames that they should have scored against pretty much any other goalie. But they did a good job of giving him a lot of shots that he could see in a lot of shots that were, you know, very manageable for him. So he played phenomenally. The Stars had a good defensive game plan. It all tied together into this like formula where they gave the flames a lot of trouble

and took them to overtime of Game 7. Yeah, I know most teams don't want to look at it like, well, we did our job and we're out in round one, but they really did. And Jake Ottinger deserves a ton of credit. He obviously didn't start the year as a starter. But when he came up and was rotating with Holpe, he was really good. And you could see that turnaround in like February when the Stars actually had a chance to compete a little bit more.

And he was a key part of it. I'm a fan of his. Also, you know, he helped my fantasy season. So I like him a little bit extra, but now he was fantastic. And the way he plays, it was how he controlled his rebounds and pressed me. And even when there were second or third chances, how he continued to stop them. And then at the end of it, the way he just would flip the puck out of his glove at the end. It's like, you know, this is a young goalie.

And to have that little bit of flare and that. Oh, you love the swag. Yeah. It's like he came out and it was like, all right. whoever like if you weren't a fan of his before you should have watched that and then like whoever he is I want to see where he goes from here so I'm excited that he got that moment because he deserved it after you know I guess there was some doubt the last couple years with dallas in their goaltending situation they had so many goalies but now it's very clear like

it's on juries and he earned it in every single way all right um we did like 20 plus minutes on the stars and flames which is remarkable on our end I think we did a pretty good job of covering our basis there. We're going to take a quick break here. And then on the other side, we're going to do the Eastern Conference component of this conversation. Champions aren't born. They're made. And the secret to make your business reign supreme, Shopify, the all-in-one commerce platform to start, run, and grow your business. Forget the off-season work. Shopify makes it simple to sell to anyone from anywhere. Whether you're selling warm-ups or wall hangers, it's time to start selling with Shopify and join the platform simplifying commerce for millions of businesses worldwide.

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and all in pricing, along with personalized help when you need it, and an easy to use website when you don't. All backed by a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Do it all today. at customing.com. Okay, let's do hurricanes Bruins here as we transition to the east. So I think the big takeaway from the series for me is sometimes I think the value of home

ice in these conversations can be a bit overrated. Like if the talent gap between the two teams is wide enough, there's only so much that the inspirational fans cheering for you at home or having a last change as a coach can really do to paper over all those weaknesses. Like I think talent will generally win out. But in a series like this, that not only featured two pretty evenly matched teams, but ones that had like very specialized,

uh, center personnel. It made such a big difference. I think for the series, home teams won all seven games. And they did so by a 32 to 12 margin. And I think the biggest difference was clearly like that last change, which allowed coaches to dictate the terms of which the games were played at and get a

jump on the matchups. So in the four games played in Cal, in the Carolina, the hurricanes had Georgia. and Stahl out there for 35 and a half Patrice Bergeron's 46 minutes at 515. And in the three games played in Boston, Rod Brindamore was only able to get Stahl out there for six minutes and 40 seconds of Patrice Bergeron's 31.5.5.5 minutes. And that's just such a massive swing to me. And now even in those games where Stahl was playing against Bergeron, Bergeron and Marchand

are such elite players that they were still able to get theirs and win those minutes in totality. but I think not nearly to the degree that they probably otherwise would have if they were playing against leaner competition. And I think from Carolina's perspective, when they were game planning for this series, I think they clearly thought, listen, if we can just limit those guys ever so slightly, we're not really scared of this Bruins depth scoring. And I don't think they can compensate for whatever they lose from their top line. And that held true. Like in this series, the Bruins didn't get a single five-on-five goal from a forward outside of their top six, which is really hard to do. but it's been a problem for them for years and it popped up again in this series

and I do believe that was kind of the difference at the end of the day. Yeah, I agree with you because you have like the Bruins two options really are. You can stack that top line with the perfection line, which we know how good it is, but then you take away a scoring option on your second line as good as their second line is with Alpastronach.

It's not nearly the caliber it could be. And then you have the other option of splitting them up, which they did at times too. So like it was really tough for Boston to figure out like the, right way to handle it. And for this, you would think Aho would have had better results against top competition when he got them when it wasn't still going out there because in the regular season, they do split that and it usually works for them. But here it just did not. You know,

Bergeron's a different animal. Oh, yeah. And it's funny. Like, you know, everyone's talking about, like, if he were to be done this year, too, like, talk about going out on top. I know he didn't finish with the championship ring, but like this was one of his best seasons yet. And he's out here killing it in his mid-30s while, you know, we're sitting here calling 29-year-olds two old to sign contracts. But no, like, it really did show the difference of like the elite talent. And you can handle that match-up game. And, you know, Bruce Cassidy does feel like he's more of a matchup coach.

And Rod Brindore, whenever everyone looks at and they go, oh, he's the players coach. But they forgot, like, his whole thing, too, is just that they're greater than the sum of their parts. It's all about systems. It's all about their foretack. It's all about their style of playing when they can control things, which they did at home. And obviously, Jordan Stoll made a big difference. you're not going to get as much offense.

But like you said, if you're not getting anything from your bottom six, that's going to bite you, especially if your opponent is, look at Max Domi, who yes, moved up to the second line in his most productive game yet. But would anybody have predicted he would have been the player to be the difference maker in game seven?

I sure is how it wouldn't. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, in those games in Boston, which all, the Bruins won all three.

Part of it was getting Bergeron away from stall. And then part of it was getting him on to Sebastian Aho and kind of blanketing them instead. And so it was a win-win in that regard. Stahl was immense in this series. Like he surprised me because I don't think he's, you know, especially in a consistent basis, the player that he was even a couple of years ago.

But man, that he did everything they possibly could have asked for in this series. He led their centers in 5-15 ice time. He led their skaters in Corey Schneider's micro-stack game score. He didn't, you know, he's not going to give you damage scoring. He's still at four five-and-five primary points in the series. And then he handled that Bergeron assignment on top of that. So I'm really curious, you know,

as we think about round two and Carolina Hurricanes versus New York Rangers, I would presume that we're going to, you know, the series is going to start in Carolina. I presume the game plan will similarity to be, all right, let's get Jordan Stahl out there as much as we can against Mika Zabinajad. And then they're going to kind of pair stall with, with Pesci and Shea as they seem to like to do against Zabinajad,

and then probably go try to get Slavin out there versus Panarin. Like, do you think that makes kind of the most sense from a, from a matchup perspective? Yeah, that one's going to be really tough. because if you're looking at it based on the regular season, I would have guessed that Stahl would have been paired against Panarin, because Panarin is a player that even if he's not playing at 100% can change a game in literally seconds.

He's one of the best players in the league. And now he actually has a scoring thread on his right instead of the likes of Dreddon, Hunt, or Barkley-A-Dro, you know, they have Andrew Kopp there. So now you have Strome, Panarin, and Kopp. That's a lot to handle. So you would think that line would have gotten stalled. But based on the way round one went. And I'm saying that like Panarin's line is the end all.

Like, it's not because you have Zabanjad and Kreider right there and you could easily match either one up. So you have those options, which is great for Carolina and the Rangers don't have as much of an answer for that right now. But I think the way that the Zabandajad line played and the way Pairn looks right now,

maybe the better option is pairing up stall to try to shut down this Zabandad line and then have Ajo go against Panarin. But it's really interesting too, because in round one, it's Mika Zabandad getting the toughest matchups, which is what he did through most of the regular season. And you have Kreider, Zabanajad,

and now it's Frank Vitrono doing it, who is not a defensive presence fight, any stress of the word. Like he is offense only, which is fine, but it's the reason why he's not a bona fide top six player in most lineups. So they were going against the Crosby line. And I thought numerous times that the adjustment could have been made to change him

to give Mika Zabandjad a little bit more support. And I think it was before game six or maybe before game five, like Zabandad was saying, like they focused way too much on playing defense instead of trying to play offense against Crosby's line. And I get why it was a lot to handle for them. But an adjustment would have been giving him more defense. support, whether it was Tyler Mott when he returned or Andrew Kopp. And those adjustments didn't come until the end of game six, where it was Mott moving up there

and the Rangers happened to score. It was just to protect the lead and ideally get to overtime if they couldn't manage something offensively. And then in game seven to get something going, it was Andrew Kopp going there. So they have these options to give Zabandad of the defensive support if he needs it. So if Stahl's line is shutting them down, they could make those tweaks, but then you deal with the other line being down that defensive force. Like if you take Kopp away from Panarin, now you need to adjust Panarin's line.

and maybe then the answer is giving him Tyler Mott. So you get into this like adjustment mode for the Rangers, depending on how Carolina matches up against them. But the problem is the Rangers aren't good at midgame adjustments. They're not good at adjustments, games and games, you know, month to month. You could look at the combinations they put out. And generally it's like these are the combinations. They're going to sit for weeks, if not months, and we're not touching them,

even if they're getting flamed every game. So it should push them a little bit more because now Caroline has the options they don't. Yeah. No, well, certainly. And, you know, it, this is going to sound like a very, like, well, yeah, no, duh statement. But this Rangers team looks so different when Mika Zabinajad is scoring goals, like, in terms of their, just their outlook and the vibe. Like, like, they need him, they need him scoring. And I understand, like, he's your best center and you, you're going to try to match up against the other team's best center and play it that way, strength on strength.

And I understand that. But they need to find a way to creatively manufacture opportunities at 5-1-5. like it'll come on the powerplay but at five on five they need to get him some looks so that he can convert and score and use his shot which is such a weapon for him and i'm not sure what that's going to look like in this series it's going to be difficult to find those minutes but you're right like they're going to they're going to need to do something to to provide him with a little bit of support because i imagine like stall going up against him makes a lot of sense because you've got subpoena jad but you've also got crider and that's a lot of size on that line and i think they're going to prefer to have stall out there for that matchup and i and then use, use, Slavon's kind of reach and, like, ability to just be annoying

with his stick work and his gap control to try and give Panarin less room to work with. Like, if I was game planning, that's kind of what I would go with personally. But, yeah,

it'll be, it'll be fascinating to see. Like, you know, part of the beautiful sort of chaotic madness of this Kane's team and the way they play is, we talk about teams that roll four lines.

Like, this team really does, like, doesn't take shifts off. Like, there's clearly, you know, there's a talent,

gap between those lines, but they all are going to try to play fast, play with aggression, push the pace, and they're not going to give you any breaks. And for this Rangers team, it'll be very curious to see how they kind of cope with that and how they deal with that because there's not going to be any minutes where you can kind of be like, all right, we're going to send our fourth line out here and just kind of hope to survive for five to seven minutes a game. Like, like the Carolina Hurricanes will take advantage of that. And so how they hang on in those is going to be really interesting to me as well. Yeah, because like, Like you said, the hurricanes can play four lines and it's not,

and there is a gap in talent, but it's not like you're going to sit there sweating it out because the fourth lines on the ice. For the Rangers, they claim not to play the match of game, which is a total crock of shit. They do play the match of game. And in round one, it was the vantage out against Sidney Crosby.

And it was Jacob Truba and K. Andre Miller against Sidney Crosby, until when Lingram was out of the lineup. And when Lingram was back, it was a different story because you couldn't go, Braun Fox against, I don't know, one of the greatest lines in the league. Yeah.

They're going to sit here and they can say that they don't play the match of game here, but they do. They put their fourth line out in situations too. Like we, you know, you're watching this, this round one series against them. And look how many offensive zone starts, the fourth line got. And the fourth line really does not have much offensive upside. And well, Tyler Motte brings it now. But before he was back in the lineup, they had literally none. It was Barkley Godrow, who's the best two-way force on that line. Ryan Reeves, you know, Dreadn Hunt played at times you're not getting this incredible fourth line that's going to possess the puck and do some danger. And of course, they had a couple of looks and there were a couple of shifts. They actually

did well. But a lot of the time you see that's the line that gets folded back. And then the next line starting in the neutral zone or the defensive end instead of those offensive zone starts, you're hoping your fourth line can get you just by grinding it out. So the Rangers have the size in theory to grind it out. But are they going to actually be able to against the hurricanes. Like those are legitimate questions. And then they have their third line, which is talented. And the kid line with Lafranier, Heedol, and Kako. And, you know, there's talent there, but they get the fewest opportunities of the bunch. And I get the lack of experience.

But when they get those minutes, it's good to see what they can do in them because they gave them spark when they needed it. They were the best line in terms of controlling like the shot share. Every single line was pretty terrible. And the quality chance share, if you look at expected goal rates for every single line combination, it was bad. Every single player was below the 50% mark in expected goals through this series. The best, I think, I think was the advantage ad was just above.

in shots thanks to his play later in the series. But they had a lot of problems with that. So it would be nice to see the Kako line get those offensive zones start to when they can. And whoever they match up against, you know, if you don't play the matchup game, just throw them out there if you trust all four lines. But they just need to be a little bit more strategic about it because like you said, there is some structure that you can have within the chaos that's hockey. And it's not even necessarily, you know, trying to shut it down or anything like that.

It's just managing the players and where they're. best fit. And I get wanting to have confidence in players and say whatever you want so you can make it seem like every single player in your heart is equal and every single one plays an important role. And that's a great and wonderful. But like this is the National Hockey League. This is the postseason and you were not very good in round one. And now you have to figure out a way to do it. So you do have to maximize within your lineup and play the matchup game and figure out how to best use the assets you have because as a whole upfront, it's not as good as Carolina. Well, I mean, you look at Carolina right now, I assume they will stick with Max Domey on the second line with

Trochec and Tara Line and just because of the Gaines 7 performance he had. So at least out of the gate, I assume that arrangement will take place again. If that's happening, you've got Marty Natchez and Yus Peri Kakhanemi on the fourth line, basically. And, you know, for Natchez, I think this is going to be a big series for him because if he's going to get some of those minutes against New York's fourth line, like theoretically, there's going to be such a massive talent and, and, and, speed advantage there. And if he can, you know, turn some of those opportunities into chances and goals, that would go a huge, a long way towards tilting the scale here for the hurricanes because, you know, the Rangers just quite frankly don't have a player of that talent level

that's playing in that role. And you could argue like he probably shouldn't be on the fourth line. But at the same time, this hurricane team does have so much depth and they like to spread out the lineup. So he is there for now. And when he's when he's cooking, I understand he's a flawed player still at times and he makes mistakes, but he's so talented. And when he's at his most confident level, like he's flying through the neutral zone. He's weaving in and out of traffic.

He's making stuff happen for others. And so if we see that type of player, that's going to be a huge advantage for the hurricanes in the series. Yeah, if you can compare his skating alone to Ryan Reeves, I mean, talk about a difference. I think NACIS is a really good player. And the Rangers with Tyler Mon on their fourth line have a good speedy presence. I know, like, I could bring him up,

but he was a really good ad for them because their fourth line, And they went for physical play. They went for tough to play against. And that's everything this team wants to embrace. But at the end of the day, you still need players who are tough to play against at the top of your lineup. And you have to figure out how truly to define it in this day and age, is tough to play against that you're going to get, you know, crushed along the boards? Sure, that works and is great and wonderful and in heavy hockey with the playoffs. But if you're losing the puck battles and you don't have the foot speed to catch up, you just put your team at a disadvantage.

Being tough to play against can be those aggressive board checkers that are hard to get the puck away. And that is literally the hurricane's identity right there. So you have four lines you can play that style versus the Rangers who don't have as many lines who play that style. Like Andrew Copp can play that way. And Mika Zanajad and Chris Crater, sure, they can do it. But Frank Vitano is not. And that fourth line just doesn't have the skill.

If Barkley-Gadrow does return, it helps. And it's funny because if the Rangers lost in round one, I was curious how many people would pin it on the loss of like the likes of Ryan Lingren and Barkley-a-Drow. And I can get behind the argument of Lingren a bit because, is if it's not lingering, it means you have Bronnan Nemet in your lineup and you have something wrong there. Nemith was not great defensively and he took a lot of penalties for someone who should be a penalty killer.

And he was on the zone agents, he was catastrophic in round one. Yeah. Which is in surprise. Yeah. Everything in his New York tenure has gone wrong. So I get that. But with Goodrow, it's like understanding what his true value is. And for a lot of the season, it's been in a role that he shouldn't have been in, which was in the

top six. Yes, he's a good defensive presence. but there's a difference between being a defensive presence and being a complementary player who can bring defensive stability. And I think, you know, you look at Foss on Carolina. That's the definition of what you need in that top six. And it's what the rangers had and let walk. And that might burn them here too. So if they get Barkley-A-Jot back, though, they have a player who can play center wing.

That's a good versatility to have. And someone that can really stabilize that bottom six. So it's not just relying on a player like, you know, Tyler Mott to be the savior for Kevin Rooney and Ryan Reeves. It's maybe you could put together a fourth line that's Ryan, I'm sorry, Kevin Rooney and Barkley, Joe and Tyler Mott. And that's the fourth line that you need to go against Carolina. It's not as, you know, it doesn't have as much upside, but you have players who can actually handle the puck and can actually skate and be hard to play against.

And then you can mix and match your lines a little bit more because the Rangers problem right now is with the way the fourth line was constructed or even the 11 forward 70 that they deployed one game where Patrick Nemeth, I think, played 16 seconds as the seventh be that game. It was his best game in the series. Truly, it was. And it's sad to say, but it was, you know, you only have so many options. If your top line isn't playing isn't hard enough to play against, you're not going to put

Ryan Reeves there. And the Rangers have tried that at times, you know, like for quick stints. And I understand it. But it's just going everything that the Rangers want to be in so many ways the hurricanes are. And, you know, so we'll see how it goes because the canes can play the dump and chase style and battle along the boards. And the Rangers have some players who could do that, but it's not up and down their lineup.

It's not the same. Well, okay, so I'm going to give you, I've given this a lot of thought. I'm going to give you three matchups, and I want your take on them for this series that I think are going to play key roles. Number one, the Rangers break out versus the Hurricanes forecheck. As you mentioned,

the hurricanes are probably the best forechecking team in the league. They are relentless. They're aggressive. Part of the reason why they take so many penalties is because they literally just, you know, they don't concede anything. Like they're going to go in there as hard as they can and try to create turnovers. And it works well for them. Like it's a massive net positive.

Now, this Rangers team, when they were humming during the regular season and when they're at their best, they're going for these long stretch passes to try to get out in transition and get easy, odd man rushes. And that was such a big part of their rush offense. Now, the penguins in that round one series did a really good job for the most part of adjusting to the way they played against them in the regular season where they clearly watch tape and noticed how they were getting burned. And so they moved up more aggressively in the neutral zone and kind of sat on that stretch

pass. And when that wasn't there for the Rangers defensemen, for the most part, they were just content to try to just like kind of hard rim it off the boards basically and get it into the neutral zone and give away possession, but at least try to get it out. And I, you know, I'm on the record not really liking that strategy. They're going to lean on Fox a lot, obviously, like the way he played in game six in particular against Pittsburgh was what they need from him in every single game in this series where he was just so aggressively slicing and dicing them with his passing and basically making everything happen for others and beyond that I think they are going to struggle against his Keynesport check pretty much everyone does but I'm very

curious to see kind of how they try to handle it or whether they drop guys back a little bit more to try to provide them some support because if they're just constantly flying the zone and trying for these long passes it could be a long series where they're just basically keep being stuck in their own zone. Yeah, that's the biggest problem. Like, this is a team that you could say they go to east to west often and, you know, Galant would probably instruct them to dumb it down and just make the simple plays. That's what we've heard throughout the season.

And, you know, I think he has faith in the players like, say, Artemian, and Panarin, you can still play to your strengths. I don't know, you know, how much that's holding now because I don't know how healthy he is. He did miss the last two games of the regular season and left the third to last game with injury. And he hasn't been 100%. We know that he can change a game, you know, even if he's not 100%. He showed that in game seven. But at the end of the day, he was not at his best.

So if he's not clicking, you know, and he can't play that style. If anybody's going to make those passes click, it's going to be players like Fox and there's going to be players like Panarin. And if he's not doing it, that's a really big problem for the Rangers to have, even though maybe someone like Andrew Crop can, you know, battle up against the boards and try to gain possession and then get it back to Panarin so he can just do his thing. But no, the Rangers are going to have to figure out a good way to adjust. And I think the two defensemen to watch, like you said, it's Adam Fox. And Fox is one of the smartest players the Rangers have. He's one of the smartest defensemen in the league because he sees the ice really well and he can figure out the plays to make. He might not be the fastest skater.

He's not the biggest. He's not the most physical, but he can make the smart stick plays. And he can, you know, close gaps and move up the lineup. He's so, I'm sorry, move up the ice. He's so smart in the offensive zone and how he can weave around his tribute to his teammates and see things that nobody else does and anticipate better than most. You can't have one player with four other skaters on the ice. being the only one to do something. I think an interesting player for me to watch is going to be

Kay Andrew Miller for how he handles that because this is a player who can make a clean pass out of the zone, but he can also skate it up the ice. And I think it's going to be really important that he tries to skate up the ice because if they go for the passes and they can't make them click, like you said, that's going to be a problem for them. Miller went up against Crosby a lot. And I think it was a little bit too much for that pair between Miller and Truba, the way Crosby's line was playing.

In the second half of the season, Miller was one of their best players without a doubt. And when he has the confidence, you see him step up into the offense and he has such a good, you know, such a good stride. He's worked on his feet and tied a little bit more. And he definitely has those off the offensive upside. He just has to tap into it. So if you can see him skating up the ice to start the breakouts instead of relying on passing as much, that'll help them as well. But yeah, the problem with the Rangers is they were a bottom five team in rush base chances this year. As much as we look at the highlights and see that's how they scored goals.

Yep. In actual shots off the rush, they weren't. is good because it just it just they didn't have the cleanest way to break out and they also couldn't sustain pressure in the offensive zone so then their cycle chances were down. In round one, they were very low on their rush based offense, but their you know, their cycle chances were high, but they allowed so much again. So they have to figure out a way to play it safe against, you know, Carolina who can definitely burn them, intercept their past, his turn play around and go right for Chess Durkin. And if he's not at his top level, which he was at the beginning of the

series and at the very end of the series too, they're going to be in trouble. So it's such a tough matchup in every way. And you can see, Brindamore is very good at adjusting, whether it's tweaking a tactic or tweaking a line to make everything click. And the Rangers aren't. They've been so stuck in their ways the entire season. And when you think of Galand, a lot of people think of the Golden Knights and rightfully so because it's like the recency thing. But this is not the Golden Knights. This is not the team that's flying up the ice and excelling in transition and knows how to, you know, stand up in the neutral zone as well. It's not so much, I mean, it's personnel too, but a lot of it, I think, is they just didn't latch on to the systems, maybe the way that everyone hoped that they

would have. Well, they are flying when they can get there, but you're right. The problem is the initial source of how they could get on the rush, right? That's why the volume of opportunities was so low, because they struggled to get there to begin with. Like once they can actually get there, they can find a way if they can bridge that gap between being in their zone and getting out there, they're going it looked good. But you kind of, you stepped on my, uh, on my second key matchup here, which is the cycle game. So in round one, the penguins just ate the Rangers alive off the cycle, obviously, particularly with the Crosby line. But when you were watching that series, there were like, there were so many moments where there was just a second chance, a third chance,

a fourth chance, just rebound after rebound in front of you're going to be gorgeous Dirk. And eventually, one you're just having to defend that for extended stretches for that long in your own zone, you're going to have holes poked in your coverage, right? And you're going to have guys cramling out of position. And you're going to have Jacob Truba just inexplicably pulling a Rasmus and Alain and leaving a man in front of the net to go try to hit someone. And then the puck goes to that guy and they score easily in front of Shastirkin. And you're going to have all of these plays, which are very problematic in their own zone. And the reason why that's a massive issue in this series is because that's exactly what the hurricanes want to do. Like they

are a fast team that plays with a lot of pace, but so much of their offense comes off of that sustained offensive zone pressure where they're going to take a heavy dose of point shots, but then they're so good at retrieving it and getting those second, third, fourth efforts. And if the Rangers aren't able to stop that and get it out before that continues, they're going to have a long series. And I think this Hurricanes team could really bludgeon them at 5-15,

because it just seems like based on what we saw from the Rangers defensively in round one, and based on what we've seen from the hurricanes as a statistical profile all year, like that's a big problem. Yeah, the hurricanes are one of the best teams at keeping the puck in the zone, you know, and keeping those offensive plays alive. They're so active with their sticks.

They're so smart with that at closing lane so you can't break out. And they just keep play alive and am you in your own end. The Penguins dead to the Rangers every single line, every single line on the Rangers you still get pinned in their own zone, every single defense pair you saw this happen with. even, you know, when it was Fox and Lingren, the Zabandadeline got pinned in their own zone so much against the Crosby line. So that's something they're going to have to work on. It's figuring out ways to break out and not just chip it out quickly and fold back into their own zone before they can even get a change off.

Like that's what was happening too. So even if they did break out, it wasn't working. They need to figure out how to break out with possession and legitimately figure out ways to take time off the clock. And there are players who know how to do that. Like Criter can get the puck, skate it down. the ice with a lot of speed and by a lot of time for his teammates. And Tyler Mott can do the same thing. He's super disruptive.

But we're talking about a couple disruptive players in New York versus an entire team of legitimate disruptors. That is what the hurricanes are. Jacob Sleven, Brett Pesci are so smart with their sticks. Brady Shea, the hurricanes found awaits maximized him that the Rangers never did. And then you have all the forwards who can play that game. So if you look at any number about keep-ins and retrievals and, you know, battling for loose pucks or stick checks to regain possession.

Carolina has a ton of players who rank very, very, very high. The Rangers only have a couple. And I know a lot of their way of being tough to play against is, you know, maybe they can go for the hit. But the hit's only effective if you come away with the puck instead of you just put yourself out of position. So players like Jacob Truba are going to have to work on that because he can be effective. We've seen him have some really highs, you know, high highs in Winnipeg.

And he's had a couple in New York, too, especially this season. and I think a lot of it does have to do with Miller. And Miller figuring out how to use his size to his advantage as well and his long reach. So those are things that they're going to have to do against this team more than ever. And it's so easy to say and go, well, you have the skill to do it. Now you need to execute it. But, you know, that legitimately is the case here. It's you do need to know how to execute it.

And if you keep getting beat, you need to figure out a way to tweak your tactics or you don't. And they didn't against Pittsburgh a lot of the time. And now they're going to go against a team that that is their identity is just battling out and keeping play in, you know, in the offensive zone. And the Rangers are going to have to figure out a way to get out of that. And, you know, maybe Shostarkin can work on his rebound control of it. Sure. You know, everybody can use a little bit of room for improvement, even their best player.

But then the problem is if he holds on to the puck, there's going to be a D zone draw. Yeah. We, I know we take faceoffs with a grain of salt. You know, they're not as important as we make it out to be, but the Rangers lose a lot of important faceoffs. And the problem is they don't stop their opponents from quickly generating a scoring chance off of it. So if you can lose the faceoffs. off and react. That's one thing, but the Rangers can't. So it's so glaring when they lose the

face-offs. And it does emphasize the importance of it as well. Yeah. Yeah. That's very well said. Okay, last one. And then we're going to get out of here. And this is more of a positive one for the Rangers because I feel like we've been pointing out stuff they do poorly and why it's going to be a problem. So the hurricanes have the league's best penalty kill, right? And they certainly get a lot of practice doing so. They spent the most time as well in the league on the penalty kill because of that aggressive play of theirs. And part of their formula for why they're so good is because their aggressive approach and sort of how they pressure the puck doesn't stop just because they have one fewer

player out there. They're going to keep going no matter what. Now, the Rangers power play, which was fantastic all regular season, has some options here for how they can potentially break through that and give them a little bit of trouble. I think first off, you know, they have players that can creatively get the puck into the offensive zone and actually get set up in the first place. Like the hurricanes typically just don't even allow you to do that to begin with, which is why they suppress so much,

whereas the Rangers have, whether it's or Tammy Panarin and his zone entries or even Adam Fox and how crafty he is, or if you're just using purely Chris Kreider with kind of a speed approach, like they have different ways to actually enter the zone on the power play and get set up. And when they're there, I think they're going to give the hurricanes penalty kill or put them in a position and make some tough choices because we saw in the series against the penguins, okay, if you decide to just leave Chris Kreider in front of the net alone and take your chances

that the puck won't get there because you're going to cover the four other guys. We know what he can do. He led to league and power play goals. He's a menace there with tips and redirections and hands in tight and he can beat you in a number of ways. But then if you do fully assign someone to him and basically go, okay, we're going to play at a disadvantage across the ice otherwise, then, yeah, sure, you're tying up a stick. but then we saw how that creates opportunities in the slot for either Zabinajad or Panarin

to kind of step in and shoot more with more space and more breathing room. And so I'm going to be really fascinated to watch that because I think everyone agrees that the hurricanes are going to dominate this series at 515, especially in terms of shots and chances, whether they score more is going to depend on goal tending and luck and all that. But on the power play, the Rangers are going to need to compensate for some of that with scoring and continue their success from the regular season. And I'm going to be really fascinated to see whether they're able to get even an inch against this hurricane's penalty kill. And if so, whether they can creatively find ways to actually get a few goals there.

Yeah, if you look at the special teams like battle, the Rangers definitely have a pretty good penalty kill. And the Hurricanes power play has had some, you know, struggles. So maybe they have the advantage there. But then you go against one of the Rangers better strengths, which is generating offense off the power play, which really helps out when they can't do it at five on five and going against this power kill. So it's really going to be interesting to see because you could see the penguins, especially late in the regular season, kind of figured it out because the Rangers played them in, you know, a tight stretch of a couple games where they would cheat towards the Zabanajad

because if you have Panarin in the right, you know that he's in a passing position more than a shooting position versus him playing in the left circle where he could pass or shoot with Savanajad in the slot. So they figured that out. And then in round one, you had Louis de Mings, right catching going against Mika Zabanajad's right-handed shot from the left circle. And it didn't work out. So they started tweaking it. it did take them a while to make that tweak, but then they could put Strom back on the right, Panarin on the left, and Zabanajad down the middle. So that works for them because that's a strategy that they use.

These are the same five players who play on the power play for the last two years consistently. And that was a strategy they used for over a year. It was only this year that they switched back because Zabandad wasn't scoring as much and neither was Panad from that spot. So you could put Panarin on the right and Zabandad in the left and then put Strom, you know, at the slot. So you have multiple scoring threats from it, but the Rangers are going to need Paneran to shoot the puck a little bit more consistently. And if there is an injury there that's stopping that,

which is always possible, I don't want to like speculate on what his injury is. If there truly is an injury, but that does seem like it could be a problem is figuring out how if he doesn't shoot the puck who can. So in round one, we did see Adam Fox shooting the pup from the point a little bit more. And that helps because you have Chris Kreider, even if he doesn't touch it, you know, he's in front of the net or Strom and Kreider can try to create some traffic. So they have options there. And like you said, they can get into the zone creatively between, you know, Criter speed, Paneran's elusive play. Fosses smart.

Yeah, exactly. And then, or Zabandad. So they really do have four players who can enter the zone, but it's going to be about keeping information and not being too stagnant in it. And as long as they keep moving, which at times against Pittsburgh, they did. And at times they didn't, they figured out how to adjust though and change up how they were positioned midway through. So they have these two strategies that they're going to go between.

But it's players like Panarin that are going to need to row around the offensive zone a little bit more and Kreider going behind the net at times because that's worked for them too. And if not it's Ryan Strom who can go back there and figure out what's best for Zabanajad or with Panarin in their positioning. Who's the better shooter at this time? Who are they going to be cheating towards? If everybody expects Zabandad to be the shooter, how do you adjust? And, you know, how can he find the space because he's one of the more dangerous players?

He should have more power play goals on this season. And Chris Kreider's been tipping and deflecting them in front. So that's a whole other weapon that, you know, if you're just talking Panera and Fox and Zabandad, like you can't forget about. Criter in front, like you said. So the Rangers should have that advantage on the power play, but they really can't, as much as they know the hurricanes have a propensity to take penalties, they can't rely on that because one, we know that the current hurricanes have one of the best penalty

kills. And two, if the calls aren't made, they still need to figure out how to score it five on five. So it's going to be an interesting matchup. It's the Penguins had a good penalty kill too, and the Rangers figured it out. So if they can figure it out against Carolina, that's going to be a really big edge for them after they lose the five-on-five battle, most likely, they're going to need special teams, but they can't completely bank on it. Yeah, well, I'm looking forward to it. I think it's going to be a fun series. I think all these round-due matchups are going to be really

fun. I'm looking forward to watching them. It's going to be nice that the schedule is going to get compressed a little bit so there's just two games on every day and we can really deep dive them and enjoy them fully. Shana, this was a blast. I'm glad we got to do this. Time really flew by. We probably shouldn't have spent 30 minutes on Stars Flames, but you know what? I don't have any regrets because it was it was fun and hopefully people enjoyed it so plug some stuff what uh i know know you're working on a lot these days so let so let everyone know uh where they can check out your work kind of what you've done recently and uh and all that good stuff so you can find my work at the athletic and at sports net i just did something on key factors for round two and i'll have another story

there later this week on something from round two we'll see it as it goes and keeping it very least there and at the athletic you can read the season series previews that i do with domly shishen and i have a couple stories coming up about how the round two team stuck up to contenders and some something on like the deadline acquisitions because you know a lot of them are very impactful you could look at nick paul and uh also listen to the too many men podcast because we're doing that a lot more consistently too awesome well this is a blast we're going to certainly have you back on sometime to you're down the road and uh until then try to uh you know try to enjoy yourself try to try to try i know you're working like crazy you have one of the best motors in the game so it's a blast following all your work

It was a blast chatting with you here today, and we'll certainly catch up sometime down the road. Thanks for having me. Sure.