The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 59: Twenty Questions

Episode Date: February 12, 2016

We go around the league answering a series of self-imposed questions such as "what's wrong with the Wild?", "can the Blues finally exorcise some of their past playoff demons?", and "what are a couple of under the radar moves at the trade deadline that could make a big difference?" We also discuss Kris Russell's future, intriguing playoff matchups, and plenty more. Every episode of this podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, and can also be streamed from our website. Make sure to not only subscribe so that you don’t miss out on any new shows as they’re released, but also take a minute to leave us a glowing review. If you’ve been enjoying the work we’ve been doing please also consider chipping in to help support the show (www.hockeypdocast.com/donate). There are a handful of housekeeping costs associated with producing the show that need to be covered, and every little bit helps. Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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My name is Indyri Philpovich. and joining me as my co-host, Travis. What's going on, man? I'm hanging in there. I have for maybe the second time in 58 shows. I have come up with the podcast as plan and you are totally unaware of it. This is exciting. Yeah, this is great. I feel like I'm the kind of hired gun here just brought in to bring some witty remarks and stuff, but I'm going to just hand over the range to you and you can get us started. Yeah, I'm going to play the role of Dimitri and I think you're going to play the role of Travis, which means you have to talk unnervingly long. And you can just kind of, I'll actually chime in with the occasionally smart response and

then you can just wax on forever. But I thought we would, what we would do is there are a lot of questions, curiosities to me about the Western Conference in general. Perhaps actually definitely more so than what's going on in the Eastern Conference right now. And I have a series, eight predefined questions for you regarding the Western Conference. And it's funny because So I'll just kind of spoiler alert this. We were, I called him, I called Dimitri five minutes ago. And he's like, he's like, oh, you know, watching the centers game right now. I'm watching the Capitol's Wild game.

And he goes, let's talk about the Wild. And interestingly enough, my first question to you is, and this is a quote, what is wrong with the Wild? Question mark, end quote. Oh, man. I don't think we're going to get to your other seven questions at this rate. We're going to get stuck up on the Wild for 40 minutes. My first real question was give me your social security. number, but I passed on that.

And now, you don't even have one, damn it. Yeah. No, I don't know, man. The Wilder is such a weird team because I was actually, I was watching that Wildcaps game myself, and they showed this graphic how at this point last season they were in the same place. Like, all their stats are pretty much identical. And they were like in ninth last year as well. They're two points out, like everything.

And they're like, this year feels a little different. And I'm like, well, yeah, because last year at this time, like Devin Dubnick was finally starting to go on that heroic run. And their team otherwise was fine, right? at the start of the year, everything was being submarined by the goaltending, and as soon as they brought in a capable guy, like everything just kind of fell into place for them, whereas this year, the goaltending's been fine.

Like, obviously, Dubnick hasn't been what he was last year, but he's been perfectly serviceable. They're getting above average NHL goaltending, and just they can't score a goal. I saw that they're shooting like 5% at 5-1-5 since the start of the new year, which is ridiculous. That's worse than the HABs, and everyone's talking about how the HABs have been in this shooting hell.

So, I mean, I don't know. The thing is it's been a long enough period of time where I'm just like, you can't really just keep going like, oh, well, eventually it's going to turn around. Like, it feels like there's something systemic that's going wrong here, right? This is not a second question. This is a subset of the question. But where are you at on Thomas Vannock? Because, I mean, he has taken a big slip down the, I guess, in the eyes of the coaching staff.

He's obviously a healthy scratch a couple games ago. Well, him and soccer, right? Yep. So I feel like he is falling out of the graces. of the team. And I think a lot of that is because he is predominantly paid two score goals. He's just kind of that type of player. He doesn't really drive the bus, especially these days. And I mean, is this the right? I saw people criticizing it. And I'm like, truthfully, at least from the games I've seen, the wild games I've seen, I don't think he's played all that well.

Yeah, he hasn't. But I think that's not necessarily surprising or any sort of revelation, right? Like he's been on the down swing for a while. And I think at the start of the year, he was actually posting pretty good numbers, especially in the power play. But at 5-on-5, he's a pretty big liability at this point of his career. And they're obviously not going to retain value from that contract. Thankfully, there's only one year left after this one. But I don't know. I think they just got to kind of ride it out.

And I wouldn't healthy scratch him because I don't think they like playing guys like Ryan Carter is necessarily the solution. But I don't think that they can rely on him based on what he used to be and what they're paying him to do. Fair enough. Is there any hope for this team to get back into the playoff picture by game 82. Are they a playoff team? I think they are. Like, looking at that roster, it just, it makes no sense to me, right?

Like, they're so, they're so deep. I mean, they have a little bit of star power there with, like, guys like Parisé, but it just, they can trot out like nine, ten guys that, like, at the start of the year, we were marveling at the fact that they play with such pace and they can roll four lines without much of a drop off and all of them can play. And I don't know, it just, it's so bizarre that they've hit this swoon. And it's gone long enough that you got to, like, it's 20 games now. You kind of have to be like, okay, there's. something needs to change.

I'm not necessarily sure benching Vanek and Zucker is going to get it done, but I don't know. I'm kind of lost for what they should do. Question number two. Are you ready for this one? Yeah. Does St. Louis have any shot at a conference final appearance? And I'll say, I'll clarify, because they obviously have more than a 0% shot.

Do they have a greater than, I don't know, 10 or 15% chance at reaching the conference final? I'm going to say no. I think 10-15, I guess, is reasonable, but I mean, that's not probably what their fans want to hear, right? Like, as things are shaping up right now, they're probably going to have to play the stars in the first round, either the stars of the Blackhawks. And I think, I mean, if they run into the Blackhawks, that's just going to be like another house of horrors for them where there's no way they're winning that series. I don't envision they want to play the Blackhawks. I think they would embrace playing the Stars.

And maybe that's partly because they just don't want to play the Blackhawks that much. But I don't know. we've had a weird run of like 20, 30 games with the stars where they've kind of been up and down now. And, you know, they're still playing pretty damn well. But I do think. Like they're, they're wide open for anyone to really beat them. So what is their most realistic if the playoffs started today and they played Chicago in round one? They would, to play out of the division in round two, they could theoretically go.

So they could go Dallas slash Chicago or Chicago slash Dallas. I mean, I guess they could do either way. Right. Right. You put that at less than equal to or greater than 10 or 15%. I just don't think they're beating the Blackhawks in a series. So, I mean, that's kind of the that kind of throws a monkey wrench in those odds. Yeah, no. I mean, I don't know. Like, what's their best bet? They play Dallas in the first round and Chicago gets upset and then they play someone else in the second round. Like, I guess that's their best case scenario.

Are you, is it, are you cool on the blues or are you just so warm on the Blackhawks and the rest of that division. I don't know, man. Just one of those things, and I understand it's not like a very analytical approach or level headed, but it's like, I just don't want to be taking the position of being like, yeah, I think the blues are going to beat the Blackhawks. Like, it's just one of those things, like, let me see it happen once and then I'll maybe change my tune.

Fair enough. We're running through these. You're out here. Before we move off the blues, though, I think it is an interesting point that Petrangelo is out for like over a month, right? and I know that they were starting to heavily kind of lean towards trading Shaddenkirk at this deadline, sort of like the coyotes did with Yandel last year. I know it's obviously a different circumstances, but same in the sense that they would try to recoup more value because he still

has an extra year left on his deal, so it's not just a pure rental to whoever's buying him. And it seemed like that that was going to be a pretty realistic possibility. And now I think it's highly unlikely that they're going to move Shandlerk, right? Yep. I do not think they can be in the position of trade. Kevin Chatton Kirk when Petra Angel is going to miss such an extended period of time. And the other thing is, if you're the blues here, like I get the, they are very incentivized to move on from Kevin Chatt and Kirk because of the lingering contract. But the, again, like kind of like how you said it, the Petro Angelo injury has kind of thrown a wrench into their plans here. I can't envision they would strip down their blue line and all that much because, man, if you think about it, a potentially, I,

I don't want to, maybe he's back to 100% a month from now. But, I mean, it's, it's so hard to also gauge how effective a player is going to be after an injury too, especially an injury where you're out four weeks or more. But I just kind of don't want to see the blues going to the playoffs with a beaten up Petrangelo and no Kevin Shatt and Gray. I think that would go very poorly for them. Well, I mean, beyond that, they have what. Parico, I like him a lot, but he's a rookie and you don't really know what to expect from him. And then, and then J-Boh has been, I don't know.

maybe I wasn't paying attention in last year or the year before that, but whenever I've watched him this year, he looks like he's definitely lost more than a step. Like I've seen more times than I can remember in years past guys just kind of going around him and blowing right by him. And I don't think they can rely on him to be the sort of a reliable defensive defenseman that they were, that they had in years past. So it's like if Petrangelo is going to be out for this long as he's reported to be, and they just can't, they can't really afford to move Shankirk. And that's kind of fascinating how it throws a monkey wrench in their plans because we talked about this when we adopted them, I think, like over a month ago or something like that in the sense that like they're in this weird

spot with Bacchus where he's an impending free agent and they can't really let him walk for nothing. But what kind of message does it send if they trade their captain for for younger pieces to kind of look ahead to the future? So there's like a lose lose situation for them, I think. You mentioned rookie that brings us to question three. Excellent segue here. Look at you working on your host chops. Yeah, I'm not good at this. Who are the Who are the two best rookies you've seen from the Western Conference this year? I mean, can I say Rettemi Pannarin, even though he's like 24 years old? Yeah, you know what?

Damn it, we're going to count him. Yeah. I mean, he's technically a rookie by the NHL's rules and regulations, so I guess we have to count him. So he's definitely up there. I mean, I think he's my Calder pick right now, barring some sort of a miraculous Connor McDavid, like 1.5 point per game run to end the year. And I don't know, I guess McDavid, like I don't know, he's played so little that it kind of

feels weird saying that, but I mean, he's clearly like the guy that just, yeah, he makes the Oilers must watch. And I mean, it's him and Hall and then it's just like no other real reason to tune in. But those two guys are so sensational that it just makes it worth it. I have no idea if we've talked about this, but the oil users would be crazy to trade Ryan Nugent Hopkins. Wouldn't they? I mean, I get the, I get the adoration of Connor McDavid. The guy is as good as advertised.

It's insane how good he is at that age. But like the whole idea of running Crosby Malkin 2.0. And like, I get that people don't think Ryan Nugent Hopkins is as good as Connor McDavid, but Ryan Nugent Hopkins is extremely good. And I don't know why they want to break that up. It seems like it has a lot to do with Leon Drysidal, but I don't know. I like, I really like that top six. Well, I do too as well. And we've definitely talked about how bad of an idea would be to trade Nugent Hopkins. I think we like devoted at least one full episode to it in the past. Thankfully, I'm glad we addressed this.

But here's a kind of a question to you. And my cousin lives in Edmonton. And he's sort of like, he's, I wouldn't necessarily say he's a huge Oilers fan. He's obviously kind of bought into the McDavid hype and watch them more this year because of it. But he asked me, let's say they finished with the first overall pick. They win the lottery, which doesn't seem like a very unrealistic, you know, possibility at this point based on where they are in the standings and the odds they'll have. And so if they win that, if they win that pick, what's like, what, you have to take Matthews.

of course, right? Like, he's by far the best prospect. It's a no-brainer. There isn't even, like, a remotely comparable defensive prospect in this year's. I really, I really want them to overthink it and not take Matthews because they have three. No, but I also, actually, more than that, I don't know which I want to happen to happen more. I don't know if I want the Oilers to win the draft lottery more because I just want to hear everyone complain and cry about it.

Yeah. Or, or they win the lottery, and then you get on Twitter and they skip right over Matthews and they take some hulking defensive defensemen. They go right over both fins. They go right off the grid to like the six or seven. Jacob Chitrin or someone. Yeah, yeah. And the,

the Oilers fan base just absolutely erupts on Twitter for the next, I don't know, decade. That might be actually better than the Oilers. Actually winning the lottery. Well, so he asked me, he's like, okay, who's like the best defenseer we could trade that pick for? I was just trying to tell him, I was like, you can't, you can't trade that pick.

Like, it's obviously to a lesser scale, but you never want to be, if you're a team like the Oilers, you never want to be trading a way better asset just to fill a need. I mean, we saw how that worked out when they traded the 16th pick for Griffin-Rinhart and it wound up being a really, really good prospect of the Islander's got in return. Like, you just, you can't make that move regardless of who you're going to get back. Next question. This is something I wrote about today, Mr. Chris Russell.

We'll stay in Alberta. Yeah. He should trade for Chris Russell. He's the solutions that Oilers' problems. Bob McKenzie wrote a piece. he's a couple days ago mentioning that Russell was eyeing a potential

contract in free agency, be it from Calgary or another team, somewhere in the range of five-ish years, 25-ish million. He noted comparables like Jeff Petrie, Andre Sechre. Nicholas Jalmersen, right? Yep, no, not Jalmersen.

Jalmersen was my gold standard defense. You're jumping ahead of the curve. You're jumping ahead of the gun on here. There was definitely one of the comparable. I can't think of a good one. But regardless, he noted there were at least a few other players that Russell and his camp would point to and say, yeah, we deserve about that much money. One, does, what, so I don't think it's going to be, we're not going to waste time. I don't think you think Russell deserves $25 million.

Is that fair? No, definitely not. Okay. So, the better question is, what is a fair contract for Chris Russell? Like, what kind of contract would you be willing to offer for him? I would pay him as a third-paring defenseman on a short-term deal, right? So like a two- or three-year deal and maybe one, one-point-five million annually? Yeah.

Like, the thing is, I saw people comparing him to Andrew McDonald, and I don't think that's a fair comparison, because Andrew McDonald just sucks. Like, he's not good at hockey. He blocked a lot of shots, and he played a lot on a team that didn't have other options. Russell blocks a lot of shots and kind of gets overvalued because of that. but I mean he has actual physical tools that we like he's a good skater he has a little bit of

offensive sense like you know he's not a complete disaster in every single facet of the game where it's like okay well all he does is block shots so I mean you could definitely do worse as like a fifth or sixth defenseman depending on who your other guys are but of course he's not going to settle for that and I'm sure someone's going to pay him much more than that so I where my I kind of agree with you actually that McDonald's is a bit of an unfair comparison here but where I do think think the two in join is, I think Russell is just such a catastrophe in the defensive zone. And I think it is, I need to come up with a good phrase to describe this. But when guys overplay and basically put themselves in more trouble than need be,

and like, this is like the, a good example of this is, the reverse, this would be like an Anton Strauman or Victor Headman or guys that are so spatially perfect. They know exactly where to be on the ice and they force the opposition to go to the areas they don't want to go. He is the anti-version of this. He is the type of guy that is just skating around so much in the defensive zone. I feel like he gets himself in trouble. We talk about this with Jonathan Quick, too, in the net.

I feel like he knows he's athletic, and he is. He's freakishly athletic that he's almost overly willing to go post-to-post and just try and make these ridiculous saves. And I think it hurts him when it comes to actually stopping these shots long term. to that end I do think McDonald becomes a fair comparison to Russell because there's the idea that they can create some offense from time to time, but they can play a bit of a scrappy game in the defensive zone and they block a lot of shots. Ultimately, I think they're both so bad in defensive zone. And not to belabor the Andrew McDonald thing, because we've talked about that at length. And I just think Russell very much is that type of guy.

He's going to chip in occasionally offensively, but he's going to get destroyed in the defensive zone. And ultimately, I feel like if you're a team looking to sign him, that's a extremely big concern. Is it not? No, it definitely is. You know, it's funny when you're talking about him. I completely agree with what you were saying about how he makes things difficult. And what we never hear from commentators is, you know, they always say, like, oh, a guy like Crosby just makes things look so effortless and so easy. We never hear about how a guy like Chris Arsle makes things look so difficult.

I understand you probably don't want to be selling that message to your viewers at home. But yeah, he definitely, there's something there, right, where he should be a better player than he is, but the results just indicate that he's a complete disaster. So my subset question, I'm not going on. This is the same question here. Is it still the third question? Yeah, actually, I think it's the fourth.

What team does sign him? Is it Calgary or someone else? Oh, man, I don't. I'll give you this. I'll give you Calgary or the field. I'll take the field. Hmm, interesting. So you think Calgary, you think Calgary would not go to, let's talk, let's talk about a fair walkdown point. Let's say 21 million. You don't think Calgary would go there? I mean, I guess they conceivably could. Like, they seem to like him a lot,

but it just seems so bizarre considering how they've allocated their assets already, right? Like, they're already paying so much on the blue line that I don't, I don't think, I think that this might be one of those situations where they'd probably like to pay them, but they might just be kind of, uh, their hand might be forced to just let them walk or even trade them at the deadline because they can't afford them. Next question. We're staying in the Pacific. Yeah.

Make, make an argument for Drew Doughty to win the north. um of the western conference like that's that's literally the only argument i have like if you discount everyone if you discount everyone that plays in the eastern conference right yeah we're we're not we're testing your uh we're testing your argument of skills and capabilities here well listen argument that that drew daddy wins the north um he's the best defenseman on possibly the best team in the league and uh there's been sort of this pushback to You know, Carlson's already been there, done that, and maybe people are sick of voting for him,

and Dowdy has shown on the biggest stages in the world, whether it's in the Stanley Cup finals or whether it's at the Olympics that he's a really good defenseman, and he sort of, he has that flashy component to his game where he can go to end-to-end rushes and set stuff up for his teammates, but also is thought of as being very reliable in his own zone, and I can see why people would be kind of enamored by that combination of his skills, but that's there. Have I, have I completed my obligation? You have complete, you have completed your obligation. So now it's actually, I actually want to get to the thing that I really want to talk to about Drew Dowdy, which is, again, it seems like every day, most of the time I stay out of it because it's just so repetitive. But the Carlson, Dowdy,

and Suban debate for, for lack of, it's really, it's a kind of a one, two these days, but it'll always be a triangle. It seems to be that the argument jumps around from the same like three or four points. But the one thing that I like, I try and pay attention to as many numbers as humanly possible. I had no idea that Dowdy had such pedestrian point totals this year. I mean, he has 33. And when I say pedestrian, I guess it's unfair. I just mean relative to where Eric Carlson is right now, your daddy has 33 points. I mean, is, is it is it totally unfair to say that That is like eyebrow raising low considering how much, how many arguments people have fielded about him winning the Norse? I mean, okay, so Eric Carlson has, I think, like 25 games left this season or maybe even more, maybe 26 or 27.

And at this point, if the year ended right now, he'd have more points this year than any non-Arya Carlson defenseman has had in five years. So, I mean, I think that's like all we really need to say it, right? And obviously the instant counter from certain people, and I saw you interacting with, uh, a certain kind of subset of hockey Twitter today about this was like, oh, since when are we talking about points for defensemen? It's like the whole point of every single player, whether it's a skater or a goalie, is how much do their contributions translate towards goals on the scoreboard and wins, right? Like, that's why we do this.

And regardless of whether you're preventing goals or scoring goals, it's the same as long as you're ultimately leading to your team outscoring the opposition and winning games. And that's all that matters. regardless of how you do it, right? So, like, this argument is just so inane to me about how, uh, just because you score a lot of points, like, doesn't mean you're a good defense. It's like, well, I don't know. It's just, it's so, we've beaten the, beating this horse on this podcast.

I feel like we don't even think of a new, a new, a new, again, a subset question to this. Is, ballot, is Nicholas Yalmersen ahead of Shea Weber on your Norris belt? Um, I guess so. I mean, I think he's a better defenseman. so I would, yeah, I guess he is now that you mention it. I feel like he's going to become my go-to guy for, oh, no one likes defensive defensemen because they don't tally a lot of points, and that's why they never manifest in the Norris races.

And I get that it's hard to win a Norris if you're not driving the counting numbers. But like, I feel like Nicholas Jalmersen is your prototypical, like, defensive defensemen nowadays and like he i think he is what people think shay weber is is that a fair statement yeah man i mean if his name was like nick harvey and he was from from mimico ontario right like people would be like oh this guy is this guy's such a warrior like his teams just win right like no one ever mentions that nicholas jommison's teams just win like i can't get over nick harvey that was unbelievable name i have no idea why i'm laughing so hard at that but it was i was pretty good on the spot there yeah okay um i think i think we're i have no idea

at number question, Rhett. I think we're playing 20 questions. I think we're honestly done. No, I think we're at seven here. Give me, and I have veto power on this answer. So if you mentioned something

that's already been mentioned, or if he's not a dark horse, I'm going to veto it. Give me a dark horse trade candidate, a player out of the Western Conference. Whoa. Someone who could be moved before the trade deadline

that is probably not on anyone's radar right now. Oh, man. I don't know. Do you have one to get going and I'll pick a different one while you're talking? No, this is not Travis questions. This is Dimitri questions here. I have no idea. So I'll talk a bit to the players that we've kind of,

so the big obvious ones, these are not dark horses at all, but it seems like Andrew Ladd is going, there's a very real possibility that he could be moved at the trade deadline. I would sense that a number of players on the Colorado roster could be in play, regardless of their kind of a little bit of, surge here through the division.

They are back in the playoff race, but I still think that they could very much be a player on that trade front. I think we have talked about Matt Dushain in particular. I still think that that could be a thing. But again, we've talked about these players. I need a player. We have not talked about Demetri. Oh, man.

Well, I want to go the other way. You know what's going to be a surprising thing? I guess it's not surprising to people that have listened to the show, but Chris Johnston when he came on earlier this week, he said that the coyotes are going to be buyers this deadline, which was an interesting thing that he dropped on us. What do you think about that? I would be surprised if they are buyers.

All within reason, right? I don't think they're going to be trading first round picks for rental players. Do you think they can get another Nicholas Grossman on the house? Yeah, man, well, they have that Chris Pronger trade ship, so anything's possible with that. I don't know. Do you think Minnesota is capable of kind of, of doing something panicky.

Like I just don't see what player on their roster they could. Like there's been, they've been rumored to be in the hunt for, uh, for Louis Erickson and Matt Dumpa's name's been thrown around because they obviously have all those defensemen locked up. So, but that's not necessarily off the radar because I've,

I've seen stories about it. I think like Pierre LeBron wrote about or something like that. So I don't know. Is Jordan Eberley off the radar? I feel like he's not on the radar. He might have to be totally off. They're not going to trade him. I, I'll,

I will throw Jordan Everly's name into, into the mix of there is not, a zero percent chance that he won't be traded. Right. Well, I think that's, that's a fair candidate. I'm coming up with the names here. This is Dimitri question. I have no, I have no issue with that being the name.

I mean, we have talked about Jordan Eberley in the past when we discussed that Ryan Eugene Hopkins wouldn't be smart trading him and we discussed that trading Eberley would be a much better plan of action. So I guess you kind of cheated there yourself. Hey, I did say Dimitri has the veto power. I said Travis has a veto power. Do you think teams like the kings and ducks are good? Like do you think they're done in terms of what they're going to do?

Or do you think there's still maybe, not maybe major scale moves, but maybe some tinkering here along the way. By the way, so I actually do have a real answer. And I was kind of waiting to see if you would arrive at the same player. But I've kind of dreamt about this for at least a full year now. And the only reason why I'm going to bring it up is because you brought up Anaheim. Look around the cap space. around what Anaheim has. Anaheim is loaded and primed to make a trade. This is in my very big dream

world of trades that probably won't happen. But I am going to say it's a non-zero, again, a non-zero possibility. Joe Thornton. I think he could be traded and it's not a zero percent chance. Maybe it's, I don't know, five, but I do not think it's a zero percent chance that he is not traded. I would pay. I think I would pay part of his contract to see Anaheim move in and get Joe Thornton and run Getslaaf, Thornton, Kessler, down the middle for your top nine. I mean, that to me is the move that if you're Anaheim and you want to say, we are all in. That Joe Thornton is as bad as all in as you can get. And I would dare to say that if they acquired Joe Thornton, they become the, I don't want to say odds on favorite or prohibitive favorite. but I mean, I don't know that I would take another team over them if they added Joe Thornton.

Is that fair? I think that's fair. And then they can also trade for Henrik Sidon and have every single really good center from 2010 on their roster. So, so Henrik Sidin, is he non-zero? I don't think he might be zero. What do you mean in terms of the likelihood he's traded? Yeah, I can't see him being traded because I just feel like he would never, he would never want to be traded out of Vancouver.

Well, yeah, I mean, there's no team that could soak up both his and Daniel's contracts. There's no way either of them are going to allow that to have. And so, yeah. Right, but that's why Joe Thornton is such a great answer because I do not, I, I don't know how much that bridge has been rebuilt. Like, it's been rebuilt to the point where you can ride a bike over it. But I don't know if trucks are going over that bridge. Like the Joe Thornton-Zano-A relationship is like, it feels very patchwork at this point. Does it not?

Yeah. Well, it's California, man. They're riding like longboards and stuff over that bridge. And ultimately, wouldn't that be the best move? I don't want to say best move because it really depends on the return. But wouldn't that be a fairly sensible move for San Jose at this point as they continue to transition? They're clearly not the team they were a few years ago. And their window is, if it's not totally closed, there's a hairline crack in the window.

And that's about it. Well, they've been playing better themselves. But yeah, no, it's pretty unlikely. I mean, the chance of them beat in L.A. Anaheim, Chicago, and Succession, or whatever it is, is zero. So, well, the crazy thing to me is, when I made that joke about the 2010 centers, like, I didn't mean to demean what Joel Thornton currently is because he's, I'm looking right now, he's 16th in the league in scoring. And his sort of defensive side of things, like playing it, playing down the middle has deteriorated

a little bit. But like on the power play, man, that guy just like, good luck getting the puck off his stick. And he's still as dynamite a passer as every, as he's ever been. And I think that that would definitely help the ducks in terms of their shooting percentage struggles that we were discussing earlier in there? That's the other part of it, right? But I mean, just thinking about that lineup, like, say what you will about Ryan Kessler and how he's depreciated as a player, but if he's in a third-slash-fourth-line role,

and it's going to be pretty, you know, it depends on really how long Joe Thornton plays or continues to play and how long Anahem holds on to him or whatever, whatever this hypothetical deal, whatever happens long-term. But, like, Kessler in a third, fourth-line role with big penalty kill minutes, like, I feel like that's his role now, not second line guy playing a bunch of minutes. Talk about being insulated too behind Gessloff and Thornton, who could play for Team Canada tomorrow. Yeah, no, I definitely agree.

That's a lot. That's a good one of your questions. So I have effectively answered one of your questions, which defeated this entire purpose, but you can save yourself here. You ready? Yeah. I think this is the final question, by the way. All right.

Does it have like 15 subsets to it? we we we we sort of we sort of talked about this in the eastern conference especially when we were talking about the islanders so i'm kind of curious the reverse of this year right if you were if you were shooting for the best like if you could arrange the playoff round one matchups any way you want in the western conference what matchup would you take round one as your number one i am going to watch every minute of every game I think I'll allow you a lot of wiggle room to move this around Is it realistic match-off?

Yeah, because I can't accept Chicago versus L.A. And that's not happening. Well, no, you said in the East, didn't you? Uh-huh. You said in the East. No, I said we talked about it in the East. So this is, again, everything,

if you have noticed, the theme has been Western Conference questions with the Beatrice. Right, right. It has to be a semi-realistic matchup. Basically the only matchup I think I'd veto at this point is Chicago L.A. and Dallas L.A. because I just don't think those can happen. Right. Oh, man, the Pacific is such a disaster. I was going to say I'd like to see the ducks playing someone,

but I mean, just like, I'm not that interested in a duck shark series because I don't think the sharks would put up that, it would get up a fight against them. Really? See, I think the series would be okay. It would register like a six on my scale. Well, I mean, it'd be interesting to see Joel Thornton come back to San Jose. I mean, that would be interesting. Yeah, I don't know how San Jose would match up with just, well, it is Logan's team now. Right. You know. Oh, it's Joe Pavelski's team.

Young Joe Pavelsky over 30 years old is steering that. Oh, can you imagine? Now I'm thinking about San Jose getting in and playing and playing Anaheim who is running Getsloff, Thornton Kessler, definitely a lot. Oh, God, that'd be bad. Yeah. I'm guessing it's going to be in the Central, the best matchup. It depends on what you pick, though.

Yeah. I would be very interested in a Blackhawks Predators series again because I really enjoyed that series last year. You know what? I'm going to say that's the right answer. I am going to say you redeemed yourself here because I just don't know what matchup could come together. I think the other thing is I think Nashville is playing a bit better than maybe the standing show. I think that's really true for Winni. It's just their goaltending, right?

Like, are they just. Peck and Renee is, by the way, at some point we need to talk about Peck and René. We're talking about him right now. We're talking about the predators. Well, that wasn't in the question, Lou. It's now you're throwing me off my, I'm like OCD. I've got to stick to the question. No, but I mean, he's just so horrible this year.

It's like, well, at what point? At what point? And you know what the point it's going to be? So I guess I'm answering my own question. I was going to say, at what point do you reduce the leash on him to the point where, as he struggles, you're pulling him out of games. And, I mean, I think that that comes to reality once you get to the playoffs. And he, you know, three pucks are already behind him in the first period.

Well, this is something you got a factor in is that, I mean, they have to appease their fan base and while winning games is probably important like very important near the top of the list I think that uh providing fox sports Tennessee with carter hudden on the bench is just as important so I mean unless you're going to give him one of those mics in his helmet where he's like talking while while the other team's coming his way and he's like getting prepared to make a save then uh yeah I don't know if you can really kind of take him off the bench I mean that's a huge loss to that entire broadcast um I i just I just feel like and this is kind of tying back to what you're saying by save percentage and just goaltending in general is really submarine that's

team's performance. If they can go on a little bit of a save percentage bender, if they can get Peckerene back to, I don't know, even just average NHL goaltending at this point, that series could be fun. Like, that could be a six-game series where there's a lot of crazy goals

and a lot of crazier things happen. I don't think people necessarily remember just because the Blackhawks looked so good afterwards, but like it was pretty shaky there for a little bit. I mean, that series was pretty wide open through the first, I think, like four games or maybe even into the fifth.

game and then kind of fell apart for Nashville, but they match up well. So I was in La Jolla during the first round last year, and for whatever reason, apparently that area is just unbelievably littered with Black Hawk fans. And we were down in the kind of the downtown area, and the bars during one of the Predators' Blackhawks games, it was one of the games where the Predators put the boots to them. It was like, there were like thousands of Black Hawk's fans. just cry. I felt like I was in Madison. So I'm kind of walking around. I just remember the, tone or the atmosphere on the bar was, wow. So this Nashville team is kind of throwing us for a loop.

And it was, it was kind of random, even though like we knew Nashville was good. It was, again, a lot of it has to do with just kind of the respect. I think we and everyone else give Chicago, which is they're pretty much untouchable. Nashville, yeah, they threw them for a bit of a loop. they're actually more than a bit of a loop. And I would be intrigued by a rematch of that series. I think that is the correct answer to this question. Yeah, that's good. Bet now the reverse of that.

This is kind of a layup, but worse first round matchup. First off, could it get worse than last year's Vancouver, Calgary? No, because I actually kind of like the three teams. I mean, we just mentioned that Duck Sharks could be a potential two, three, a Pacific Division matchup. So, I mean, that's significantly better. Well, what if San Jose doesn't make it in Arizona gets in? Oh, God.

Yeah, that'd be a slot. I mean, at least it would be over really quickly, so we wouldn't have to worry about it too much. And Arizona at least plays, like, an open game. Like, they could lose, like, 6-2 every game. So, I mean. That's a fair point. I like watching, don't mean to Claire.

And I don't think they are a boring team to watchers. I just don't think they're very good. Now that we've kind of gone to that tangent, though, I need to talk about this Vancouver-Calgory series. It dawned on me last week that, that's probably the worst first round matchup. Is there a worse, has there been a less talented first round matchup than Vancouver, Calgary last year in like, I don't know, the last decade?

No, I don't think that. That was, I mean, am I wrong to say that that was like painful to while? Like, it was, I remember being moderately entertaining because of like the after the whistle stuff in that series. And you had Michael Furlin just kind of running around like a little bit of a game. Well, I mean, you know you're, you know you're reaching for storylines and excitement when Michael Furland irritating the Canucks

after the whistle was literally like the second most exciting talked about thing in that series. There was, there was, I believe, and I think this is on the same night

actually to my Chicago National story. I believe the same night was also the game where there was basically a brawl either. There were like a, maybe like five brawls in the final minute of the game. And I just remember becoming totally hinged

and you could tell that the teams truly hated each other. And I was like, You know, I kind of like the hatred part of them. Like, God, this thing is so bad. It was so painful to watch. Yeah. And then, I don't know how anyone, I guess, I guess that's kind of a myth because I think a lot of people did see it coming.

But I wonder how many people actually thought like Vancouver would have a nice rebound. You're like, that team, that team is so bad. Yeah. Well, then the problem with that series was that, I mean, you're just like, okay, you're going to win this series. Great. Now the, you're just going to feed you to the ducks on a silver platter. Like it was no way the ducks were losing either of those teams or just took a lot of the drama out of it.

I remember writing about how that matchup was going to basically, and this stupid-ass format was going to pave the way for basically as close as you can get to a second round by, which I think is stupid because I will say this, when you get to the second round, third round, and it's the same exact thing in the NBA, which is going to be my last question, by the way.

But I really do enjoy, like I know everyone talking about the first round and the craziness. You always have one team that's like pushing for this upset than no one expected. But I really enjoy like the second and third rounds where these like truly top end talent teams go head to head. And like when a team like Chicago plays L.A., that's what I'm the most intrigued. I'm less intrigued by the upset stories in round one, even though that can be fun from time to time.

Like I really like seeing best versus best. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's pretty reasonable. I don't think it's necessarily a hot take to say that you like seeing the highest quality of hockey. And it's, uh, it makes sense. Um, I, well, I, I do think this is a semi hot take because there are a lot of people in hockey who just love, love the upset. And I, I kind of hate the upset. I'm not going to lie to you. I hate the upset. Well, yeah, it just throws everything for a loop, especially because like, okay, great, that team won this series. They're probably going to be completely out of gas now and just get smoked by their next opponent. Like, what's, oh, I don't really see the fun in that unless it's something where you could conceivably see them winning the next round. Like that year, the oilers made the cup final where it's like, holy shit, they just beat the red wings and they just kept going, right? final question where's the better playoffs right now NHL or NBA oh man I

NBA NBA right I really think this is a pretty damn close question because I genuinely think the and I was just kind of bashed in the NHL but the first round in the NHL you're going to get six of eight series at an minimum that are really cool fun and yeah you're going to have a series to stinker and maybe like like that San Jose Stable a series a couple years back I thought that'd be fun. It was terrible, and I believe it was a sweep too. And, you know, like those things happened, but for the most part, the NHL is really compelling. The NBA, you're going to get like three or four blowouts, but I'm thinking about it recently,

and I'm like, once you get to the second round, is the NHL really better the NBA playoffs? The way the NBA has kind of risen from the depths of hell of the last, I don't know, a decade ago when it was almost unwatchable to sport. And now you've got so many great get around the league. And it kind of gets back to, I guess, my point. Maybe this is a personal preference, but I like seeing best versus best. And I think the NBA does a job of ensuring a small degree of parity and at the same time, obviously, ensuring that for the most part, the more talented team wins.

And again, I know that's kind of boring. I think the NBA does a better job of it. A lot of extension, I think the playoffs might be better. Yeah, well, that's a good point. I mean, the first round is kind of, I enjoy it a lot more for hockey. it just seems like there's a lot going on and, and jumping back and forth between games. And when they go to overtime and it's just like, they're bleeding into other ones. And that part of it is fun.

But I think if we, this year, if we actually get like Blackhawks, Kings and then Oklahoma City versus San Antonio, or like Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Golden State, that trio, and then Kings, ducks, Blackhawks, like some combination of those two going head to head. I think that's going to be a pretty sweet time of year. dude i hate when i know it's gonna do like it's gonna be the perfect setup where you're gonna have like a chicago l.a and a san antonio golden state and you know there's gonna be like actually so the NBA is gonna be in trail but you might have a round two series that's just as good so let's say a round two series between i don't know it could be Oklahoma city against like the

the warriors or something like that could be yeah it could be in all and it could be uh it could be most likely it'd be spurs thunder for example but that's good example so you could have Spurs Thunder running concurrently with Blackhawks Kings for the conference final. And there's going to be a couple of like that overlap, especially in timing. That is literally, people love it. I think that's the absolute worst because you're not going to DVR a game, but at the same time you're torn because they're both so captivating. And you're just frantically jumping back and forth.

Well, yeah, I mean, that's where you just hope that they have like alternate days, right? Like a Monday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and just go back and forth like that. I mean. We got to get Adam Silver and Gary Betman in the room and just did in the same room. Can we end with this? Man, Gary Bettman, like, I just, I don't know, man. Like, should I send you some, like, extremely strongly worded emails and then eventually get them to leak or something? Like, I don't know, like, what's wrong with this guy? Do you see that quote today where he said that there's nothing wrong with NHL.com? You just have to play with it. Like, does he not, not even understand, like, the sexual innuendo involved with that comment? Like, I just, like,

glossing over that. Like, I, like, I, no, well, this is what happens. happens when, and look, the reality is, I highly doubt that this falls on Betman specifically, but let me explain why. He's just getting his information fed from middle management and guys who are actually in the weeds working on the stuff. And yeah, you think they're going to go run and tell Gary Betman that SAP has swindled them for $100 million and their stats database is a total joke and game center doesn't work. And what they're going to do is, oh, the problems are overblown. Everything's working fine. Come check out it out. You know, and they'll, They'll show the, they'll give the five minute run through the high memory of everything looking good and feeling good.

And the problem is when you get in the weeds, you know, it's crap. And this is, this kind of permeates through every single big business, not just NHL. It's when you are, it's in the muck looking through everything and combing through everything, you find everything is tightly strung together or you find it's a house of cards. The NHL is a house of cards, whether it's NHL TV, whether it's a stats database, it's the website. But, you know, just Gary listens to direct reporters, the people who directly report to him, and I'm sure they're like, yep, everything's great over here. So that's what Gary says.

Nothing to see here. No, sir, yeah. That's... Dimitri, you passed your test. Excellent. Woohoo! So hopefully next week, I guess we'll probably... I mean, not hopefully.

I really enjoyed this kind of gig where I could just show up and just talk for 40 minutes about random stuff. And I definitely see why you like the arrangement that we have going. Yeah, fair enough. Cool, man. So we'll be back early next week then. Sounds good, buddy. Hey, this is up to you. Now you got to have a nice little send-off and thank the fans or something like that. I mean, you're the host. Yeah, how do you usually go, well, I just, you know, want to reach out and thank everyone

who's been showing the show, support, and love. And just remember to subscribe to us on iTunes and are we still on SoundCloud? We are still on SoundCloud. Are you trying to make me sound like I don't know, you made me sound like I have such like a soft, gentle voice there. No, it's smooth. I'm ruffled and just overly aggressive and you are calm, cool, and collected. So that's my articulation of calm, cool, and collected. Well, that's why we're a good team. All right, cool, man.

Well, we'll be back soon. All right. Sounds good. Let's roll into the night. We'll be back Tuesday. Actually, no, we upload on Tuesday night until we'll be back Wednesday morning. There you go. online at HockeyPedocast.com.

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