The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 74: Mailbag Show

Episode Date: March 31, 2016

The Official Colour Commentator of The Hockey PDOcast Mike Johnson joins the show to help answer a wide array of listener questions. Here’s a quick rundown of the topics covered: 2:08 The playoff path for the Penguins 7:28 The St.Louis Blues as sleepers 12:00 Ken Hitchcock and Bruce Boudreau 15:12 Incorporating analytics into broadcasts 19:45 The preparation for a game 22:30 A coach's obsession with faceoffs 26:30 The numbers players look at 33:30 Upcoming games Mike is covering *Every episode of this podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher 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 a glowing review. *Sponsoring today’s show is SeatGeek, which is making it easier than ever before to buy and sell sports and concert tickets. They’re giving our listeners a $20 rebate off of their first purchase. All you have to do is download the free SeatGeek app and enter the promo code PDO to get started. 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.

Are you ready for the most ridiculous internet sports show you have ever seen? Welcome to React, home of the most outrageous and hilarious videos the web has to offer. So join me, Rocky Theos, and my co-host, Raiders Pro Bowl defensive end, Max Crosby, as we invite your favorite athletes, celebrities, influencers, entertainers in for an episode of games, laughs, and of course the funniest reactions to the wildest web clips out there. Catch React on YouTube, and that is React, R-E-A-X-X. Don't miss it. This podcast episode is brought to you by Coors Light.

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C-KKK is a service which makes buying and selling tickets easier than it's ever been before. They pull all the tickets available on other sites into one handy location for you, even going so far as to ensure that you're getting optimal value by alerting you once the prices fall. The best part of it all is that they don't try to sneak in those random fees at the checkout, which means that you know exactly what you're paying for when you're choosing your tickets. Seek's providing my listeners with a $20 rebate off their first purchase today, and all you've got to do is follow a few easy steps. Just download the free Seekek app,

then go to the settings tab and click add a promo code and type in PDO. Once you've done that, Seekek will send you your $20 rebate. Download the free Seek app, enter the promo code PDO, and you could start saving yourself a bunch of time, effort, and money as you get your hands on whichever tickets your heart desires today. Regressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PDOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the HockeyPEDO cast. My name is Dimitri Filippovich, and joining me is our favorite,

the official color commentator of the HockeyPEDO cast. It's Mike Johnson. Mike, what's going on, man? Not too much. I just wonder who I'm up against because if I'm the official one, there can't be too many other people in the running for it. Well, we've had Ray Ferraro and Jamie McClan and on, so you know you're in some prestigious company there.

That's some good company for sure. Yeah. Okay, so I thought we'd be interesting if we did a little mailbag-type show, mostly because around this time of the year, it's pretty dry on material while we kind of wait for the seating to shake out and the playoffs to start, and our listeners are pretty smart and creative, and they came through for us.

So are you cool with kind of answering some of these Twitter questions that we solicited from them? For sure. Okay. Cool. Okay. So from Dan Land here to start us off, he asks, what's Pittsburgh's playoff outlook with and without Malkin? So I don't know. What do you think of the road ahead in terms of how that Metro Division is shaking out right now?

Because I think that the general timeline is Malkin could potentially be back for a second round series, I think. Yeah, I think how well they've played down the stretch here since Mike Sullivan has taken over, really, and not just the point that they've won, and the fact that Sydney Crosby has been lights out, best offensive player in the game again. But I think how they have a little bit more structured to their game, they're a far better possession team, they're not just relying on terrific goal-tending or amazing individual players. to win games,

that they have a plan in place that allows them to, even when a guy like Malkin does go down, to stay with the program and be very successful in games. So, you know, it looks like they're going to probably get the three seed and play the New York Rangers in the first round. I think Home Mike means a lot in that series. I think New York is so good at home that if Pittsburgh

is a start to the road, to be a much tougher, tougher first-round match-up, but I think they absolutely are capable and would not be a shocking upset if they win the first round and head into likely Washington in the second. Even without Gennie Malkin, I think what we've seen in the last little while is, well, one, Crosby's incredible, and he really has shaken off the malaise that was in his game

in the first 20 or so of the season. And the other part of it is that I think we have seen that Phil Kessel, for as great a talent as he is, he's a guy that maybe plays better with players that don't demand the puck as much as Malkin

and Krosi. I think that Kessel, much like Tyler Bozak, Nick Benino, guys who want to defer the puck to him, want to give him the puck and let him attack with speed through the neutral zone, do the heavy lifting, don't let him worry about necessarily backchecking

or defensive assignments, but blow the zone. and create speeds of neutral zone and attack, that's when he's at his most effective. When he gets with players who are equally or more talented than he is, a guy like Karasvi, a guy like Malta, they want the puck on their stick across the blue line. And that puts Phil in a different spot where he's primarily a shooter, and he's not that kind of guy who just floats around,

waits for a pass, and then gets the way like maybe James Neal, who's an excellent goal score, but he doesn't really want the puck. He just wants to shoot it. Phil wants the puck before he shoots it. And maybe they found a really good fit. there with Hagelin and Benino down the stretch. So they are a dangerous team. I think Washington is still the heads and tails favorite in the east,

but to see the Penguins win the first round and get up against Washington the second round wouldn't be a surprise at all. Well, that's an interesting point. I wonder if he's kind of making too much money and he's regarded too highly if Malkin comes back for them to actually keep Kessel on maybe a third line with Haglin and Bonino. But, I mean, that'd be, don't make them so frightening to play against if you know that there's three lines they can roll, that can all just equally score on you, right?

It's a fascinating decision for all of that to have to make, because you're right. I mean, at some point, they will run out of quality wingers to pull it with a guy that's getting any Malkin. Malkin, of course, good enough to do a lot on his own, but, you know, is he playing with what? Eric Faire or one of the young guys, Russ, Bennett, Bunkle? I mean, those are not traditionally

top six elite-level wingers for Gennie Malkin, But the one luxury they have, though, is that if he is coming off of injury and he hasn't played for whatever it's going to be for six weeks, maybe it's a little easier to say, you listen to a rolling or slide you in, break you in slowly, so just you can play with these guys for now, get you out of the specialty team, play with the power play and see what happens. Because if that line of Benino Kessel and Hague-Lan is playing like they are now and they carry it forward, then I don't think you can justify breaking it up even for an of getting Malkin in the playoff. Regular season, yes, but not in the playoffs. Yeah. Well, that Rangers matchup is fascinating for me because obviously you never really want to play against Henrik Lundquist. He could easily just be a one-man show and just steal the series for the Rangers. But I was just like forecasting that matchup for them.

That Penguins speed, which is remarkable to me how they've on the fly made themselves such a faster, younger team, whereas the teams from past years, that year most notably where they acquired a Ghinla and Brendan Morrow and Douglas Murray. And they were just so slow. and they've kind of adjusted on the fly to this new NHL style of play and that Rangers blue on I feel like they really just give them fits. So I'm kind of wondering if that's the ideal matchup

for them in the first round. It might, and if you saw the game, and it was a good one, a couple nights ago where Crosby won the game in overtime on the Sunday, you saw several examples of the Penguin's forward, especially that line with Hagelin and Kessel, roasting the Rangers' defense, but just flying by,

them, leaving them standing still. And not just, you know, the usual suspects where people say, well, maybe Dan Gerardi or Mark Stahl, but Ryan McDonough was getting walked and Klein was getting walked. So, yeah, I think the speed game of the Penguins would give any team trouble, but maybe the Rangers specifically as their D-Corps has gotten slower quickly. You mix in Yandel and Dan Boyle to other guys that are not the fleet of foot. It could be a tough matchup for the Rangers.

Yeah, all right, let's move on. We've got a question here from Slaw, who asks, St. Louis Blues a sleeper this year. Can they get some love from the PDO cast? They're not a sleeper. They're wide awake. Well, no, I think he's asking because I did a podcast recently with Jonathan Willis where we sort of rank the contenders. And we left the blues sort of on the periphery just behind the ducks and the kings and the Blackhawks out west. And I still think that's fair. I mean, just based on kind of recent history and what we've seen this year, the blues have an

uphill climb in front of them. I don't know, like, what do you make of them? Because this year's been so weird for them with the injuries and kind of the uncertainty if they were going to keep Shattonkirk or try and extract value and trade him and Bacchus is an impending free agent. It seems like they were a little bit all over the place, but maybe it's just a testament to Ken Hitchcock that he's kind of kept him together throughout it all. It is.

I mean, say what you want about Ken Hitchcock, and he's not everybody's favorite coach, even the players that play for him, but he is an excellent coach. And he gets a team focused and gaining. point despite many long-term injuries to key players. So I don't think they're a sleeper at all. And if you ask me, I would say especially if they win the division, they're currently tied with Dallas.

They don't have the tiebreaker. But if they win the division and can avoid Chicago the first round, I think that St. Louis comes out of the central. I think St. Louis beats Chicago this year. I think that this is their year. Alex Steen is going to be back tonight. They're finally getting healthy. I think maybe the emergence of, you know, Pereco has been a really nice fine.

Edmonton, maybe to a lesser extent, but a little size that goes with speed that can perhaps play against the high-end guys in Chicago a bit better and limit what they can do. And Chicago, I think, just with age and fatigue, and you never want to discount the champs and all that they've done, but I think they might be, this might be the area. It's so hard to do it year after year after year, and they have. I think St. Louis is right there an equal co-favorant to come out of the west of anyone, Chicago, L.A., and I'm anyone, especially if they can win the division, because that means they'll only have to get through one really high-end team before they get, you know, to the conference final. So I like them.

The biggest question for them is, what are you doing that? I mean, like, Jake Allen was their guy. They put him in there last year, acknowledging that he didn't have as much experience, but that was part of his growing process because he's going to be there for several years. You've got Brian Elliott right now, who's three shutouts in a row. He's got league lead in goals against and say a percentage. I think after about five years in St. Louis, where every year they seem to go out and try to find a better goalier than Brian Elliott. I think this is the year they realized that maybe he is the better goalie, and just let him start.

He's got the experience. He's been through a lot of different things in his career. And if they get any kind of decent goaltending, the kind of goaltending that L.A. that's played all year, I think they are, they are not a dark horse at all. They are, they are a favorite to do exceptionally well to playoff.

I know they've had failures in years past. I know they've come up short, but I just think this year, this sure will be the year. I think they are very likely to, or as likely as anyone, to advance with that potential. Yeah, well, that's fair.

You know, it's funny you were saying earlier. Every time I bring up Hitchcock's name to any former player, there's always the same reaction. It's always a slight little pause, and then you go, say what you will about Ken Hitchcock. Yeah, I know. Listen, he's hard on guys. He can be a little crabby to be around when things aren't going well. He kind of has a whiny nature. You've got to do a lot of video, a lot of corrections.

So it wears on you, but the saving grace is that you. win and you're willing to put up with just about anything when you win. But I do think, though, if they don't, if they do flame out in the first round again, or maybe even the second, I think that will probably be it for Ken Hitchcock and St. Louis. And that's not saying he hasn't done a fantastic job because he has. I just think he is definitely a guy with a shelf life and you probably can't have his voice in your ear for more than four or five years. So do you think that he's more likely to be fired if the Blues have an early?

exit then say Bruce Boudreau if the ducks go out in the first or second round? Cool. That's a very good question. I would, uh, wow. I think they're probably right up there, right? Yeah. I think they both probably get let go. I mean, really.

But I think Bruce Boudreau deserve a lot of credit for what he's done this year in Anaheim. His, his critics in years past would suggest that he's a very good personality coach, maybe a bit of a good psychologist, but not a really good technical. X and O's guy. but for him to switch gears midstream with Anaheim this year and get them to change their forecheck, their neutral zone, and maybe more importantly their mindset is about how they go about trying to win games,

not trying to win them four to three, but to try to win two months of not scoring, and getting the team to buy in and now maybe all the way back to winning their division, I think there's a lot of credit. He is one of the best regular season coaching coaches of all time. It's hard to say that, but his numbers bear it out. I think he has the best winning percentage of any coach ever

for the regular season. But two things you have to realize with Anaheim that may be a bit different is that they're not a team that just throws around the money. So the prospect of having to pay people that don't work there is not as palatable to the duct as some of the other organizations that just make change and not worry about whatever million dollars

that might be on the books for their coaching staff. So that's something to consider. And Anaheim has so many changes coming this summer. When you think about Anderson, Raquel, Lynn Holm and Botanin, all our RFAs, all stand to increase their salary by $4 million, probably minimum. Each one of them, you're talking, you know, $16, $20 million in new payroll with those four guys alone, plus all their unrestricted guys. That team's going to look different.

They're going to have to make some tough decisions. some trades of quality players to just get under the cap or get to their internal budget. And this will be the last year that that Ducks team, as it currently looks, will be together. Yeah, that's fair. Which would be a shame if they kind of had to blow it up on the fly because they've been so successful. And just missed that hurdle by a little bit. And I think they, listen, I like Kevin BXA. We went to the same alma mater.

Right. I'm not sure why you extended Kevin BX. I know you wanted to change the look and you needed a veteran guy, but you had Theodore, Chey Theodore, you have Brandon Montor in the minors. You knew you were going to have to pay Linholm and Botan. And they have to get rid of a Linholm Botan or maybe even a Camp Fowler because I have two more years of Kevin Biaxa.

And I like Kevin Baxa. That's not good planning, is it? No. To put those guys at risk and their age because you're on the hook for $4 million to Kevin Biazza or Clayton Stoner for that matter. Yeah, they had themselves all set up. And John Gibson is on a very friendly contract, so I think they probably can trade Freddie Anderson to any number of teams

and get a pretty decent return. That won't be hard to do it because they have Gibson, they'll be able to do it and not fully take a step back. But if they lose one of those good young defense, that seems like something they could have avoided with maybe a little bit better future planning. Yeah, for sure. Okay, let's move on.

I got a question here from Declan, who asks, what's the biggest challenge of incorporating analytics into the broadcast? And I think that this is a pretty topical discussion for us to have because I saw Ray Ferrar, with aforementioned Ray for R arguing with people on Twitter yesterday about this very thing where he was essentially making the point that he understands and he recognizes the numbers, but at the same time they numb things for him a little bit. And he'd rather just kind of talk about what he's seeing on the ice while he's calling the game, which is perfectly understandable.

That is his job description. But I'm kind of running because I think you do a pretty good job of incorporating all of these sort of means of analysis. So what do you think the big? challenge of getting that message across to people who are watching at home is? It's a good question, and it's one we talk about and I think about, because I'm maybe somewhat more open to the numbers. I am a number guy, and I like my math, and I enjoy looking into it.

A couple things of the challenge. One, the verbiage and maybe some of the things you're talking about, is not something that is second nature to all hockey fans. and while it's great and you want to educate and open the eyes and maybe teach people something they don't know some of the terminology and just the familiarity is not there

with what you might be talking about which can make it difficult that people don't really understand instinctively if I want to talk about breakouts or even a goal of assist plus minus whatever it might be things at least people know what they are you don't have to worry about one thing

understanding what the numbers mean but just even understanding what you're talking about so that's a challenge too not everyone loves seeing numbers and processing numbers while watching sports so you have to find a way to do it where the numbers as Ray said don't kind of numb the message

that the message comes signing through and the numbers if you're using them support the point you're making but the point is easier to understand than staring at a graph with a graphic with 12 numbers on them right so and then doing all that in my job or Ray's job during the game

to do that in 10 to 15 seconds can be challenging. If you're in the studio in intermission, you have a minute and a half it's a little easier, but to do it in 10 or 15 seconds because the game's about to start again and you can't be jabbering on while

somebody's about to go score a goal. All those things make it challenging. So there's moments where you have ideas and you have numbers or thoughts and some of the analytical stuff in your mind, but it's not always easy to get it in, even when it applies due to the timing, the time constraint that we're under.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. I think the verbiage definitely is a good point where it would be much better suited, kind of getting that message across if they had better, more common sense names, right? Like, I think even, like, PDO, for example, trying to explain to someone who's never heard of it before what PDO is is such an exhaustive process where you're like, well, actually, it doesn't, it's not an acronym, it doesn't really stand for anything, it's, uh, You know, you're right. You're right.

And maybe in enough years, you know, you can keep calling it PDO, and in five years, maybe everyone we're like, yeah, PDO, say a shooting percentage, it's all good, we get it. But until that becomes common knowledge, then you have to say PDO or you have to say that is the shooting percentage and say percentage added to get, whatever you want to. You have to explain what it is. You need a glossary on a graphic, which is tough to do during a game.

So, yeah, I try to, you know what? But you can find ways to, you can find ones that fit. I look, we have a company that provides us at Sportsman with little analytical notes about the games we're covering. And you scour that and you see which ones can make sense and not only make sense, but it makes sense to be put in a broadcast where people can appreciate it. Oh, okay, that adds to what I'm seeing on the ice. That explains what's happening on the ice. that why is martin morinchen a favorite of mike babcock because he has zero goals i don't get it

and then you how you show what mike babcock is seeing then you show the numbers that back what mike babcock is seeing and why he is better than maybe you at first blush might give him and then it maybe adds to the context of the game and so that's what i try to do when i when i go to prepare for a game okay well so a follow up from from myself actually now that you were discussing that i forget if we had this chat last time you were on so if we have let's just kind of rehash it but i'm always fascinated with your approach to covering a game from the sense of the preparation aspect of it, where I know that you get your full schedule way in advance so you know which games you're doing in which cities at what time. But kind of what goes into actually preparing for it?

Like do you, uh, let's say you have two days off between games. Do you kind of try to have discussions with players and coaches or people covering the team or do you look at certain trends to know what you're going to kind of focus on when you're actually out on the ice rather than totally freewheeling it? Like kind of what goes into that? leading up to it? Yeah, I mean, everyone's got their own unique way of doing. I have, obviously, like, a base template of preparation I do for both teams that are in the game, so mostly autobiographical, some base statistical stuff, just to kind of get, you know,

reapprise yourself with whoever one is and where they're from and what they've done and whether they're playing well, whether they're hot, cold, whatever. And then the last, whatever, week or so before the game, depending on how many days you off. You start, of course, watching the games that they're playing in their entirety,

you know, the previous one, two, three games before the one that you cover. You start paying more attention to reading the articles

in the newspaper, going on the web, hearing the sound, tuning into the radio, trying to get as much information about what the people involved on the team

are thinking and saying about what's going on. You reach out to coaches and players to touch base and how they're feeling about what's going on.

And then I dig into some of the numbers, checking out some of the different websites, both mainstream and maybe more analytical based, to see if you can pluck out something interesting that maybe it's just about one player. It's just about one guy. Maybe I'm doing Florida on Saturday. I want to highlight why Barkoff is such a good player.

You dig in and try to find stuff, stat, story that would support what makes him so highly thought of and so effective. And so you do that, and it takes, well, obviously, several, several hours for every game. And then you come up and try to condense it to thoughts and points and notes and graphics

that can be incorporated into a game. And then you start the game, and there are several games where absolutely none of that comes on the air because the game dictates that you don't have time and other things happen. And the story I want about Barkoff being good at his own end doesn't play out because he's awful that night. So you just kind of park that one and save it for later.

So, yeah, so that's kind of, kind of how you do it. Everyone's got their own way. You take away and just try to add as much stuff to your preparation so that you're ready for anything. No matter how the game turns out, you're going to be able to do a thorough job. All right, I got a question here from a count for hockey who asks, can you talk about NHL coach's obsession about face-offs? And I I'm looking, while you were talking there, I was trying to quickly get ahead of the curve here and look up your face-off stats. And for some

reason I can only find your numbers from the 2007-2008 season while you play for the blues where you had a you won two of eight face-offs in 21 games. So you probably don't have a great appreciation for face-offs themselves, but why do NHL coaches? Well, listen, let me say two of eight. I'm sure they're all taken short-handed. So you've got to factor that in. You got a not a good chance in one of them short-handed. I bet in my career I was about a 43% face-off guy, and I didn't take very many. I played wing almost my entire career. And I do have an appreciation for them. Probably more, I think, you know, people are beginning to understand that maybe face-offs are not quite as important as we want. But, yes, there's a face-off with 10 seconds left

in your own end. It's really important. Right. You get that. I mean, that's a really important moment, but, you know, a 52% face-off guy in the neutral zone is not a game-changing thing because that's one second of play. It's really what you do, the other 45 seconds of your shift that are probably more important than the one face-off. But having said that, as a player, when I played, I played with a few great sentiment on Phaedsoff, including Janick Perrault, who might have been the best in the NHL. And I love playing with that guy. I love playing with that guy because you didn't have to chase.

You felt like you could start with the puck, and it saved your energy and saved your work to try to create gold as opposed to try to get the puck back. So I think players like it because it's easy possession, because trying to get possession back oftentimes requires work and energy, and you want to save that for when you have it. I think the coaches like it are, as the question, fixated on it, because it's a static, controlled event. And there are so few things in a game that the coaches can put their hands on and say, this is what we do.

It's like a football play. Everyone starts in the same spot. Everyone knows what they're supposed to go, whether you win or you lose. And I think that's why coaches put a lot of emphasis on it because it's something they control. Where you go, how you react, how it's played out is something that they can absolutely, dictate where you go, and I think most coaches like to be in control. So that's probably why

they put a lot of emphasis on, and a bit of the old school mentality where they think it's really important to win that face off late in the game, to get the game possession of your own end, to get the clear on the penalty kill. And all those things are important, but maybe just not quite as maybe we

once thought. Well, it's also one of those things where it's really easy to latch onto and focus on if you lose a face-off clear, in your own zone, for example, and the puck winds up in your net five seconds later, it's really easy like after the game, for example. If you're running tape to be like, hey, man, if we won

this face off here, maybe we've got to got the puck out of the zone and not have been down one nothing like that, right? Yeah, it's an easy thing to point to, for sure, for sure, but you wouldn't point to the 25 things you could have done to get a goal back or the other 25 things you could have done differently to score, or not, to prevent a goal

that didn't come off the face off. Yeah, you're right. It's a very clean and easy explanation for things that happen occasionally. Not often, but occasionally. And so you pay a lot of attention to it. And to be fair, the Sederman absolutely care a lot about their face-off numbers. The guys who are good at it, they pride themselves on being 52, 53%. It matters to them. You see the odd guy, like two seconds left in the period.

It's a neutral zone face-off. but two guys are digging in like game sevens on the line. And it's because they want to pad the stat. They know it's a stat that they are evaluated by rightly or wrongly. And so they want to have good ones. So it matters to the sentiment as well. Yeah. Okay, so I got a two part here for the first part is from Stockyards,

onion rings who asks, have your thoughts on plus minus change? Yeah, that's like a day. Have your thoughts on plus minus change in recent years? And my follow up to that is sort of related to it where you said you're really into numbers. and I'd imagine that appreciation has been rooted in you throughout your entire adult life, but at the same time, this sort of more analytical movement has happened after your playing career and the NHL was over. So while you were playing, like, were there certain numbers you were looking at?

And it's okay if you want to admit that you were a huge plus minus guy. Don't worry. We won't make fun of you on this show. It's okay. No, it's okay that you do. Okay, a couple things. One, yes, my feeling about play. plus minus have changed, only because, you know, we have more information now that there are maybe

better and different ways to evaluate your effectiveness of a five-on-five player beyond plus-minus. Back when I played, I wasn't aware of different ways. And so the most obvious way and a common way to do it was plus minus. So it did matter to me. So go ahead and make fun of me. And I always thought, and I maintained this when I played, hopefully I was smart enough to realize this, that plus minus the actual number is not really indicative of your ability, 5-on-5 or your defensive acumen or any of those things.

It really is the relative number to your team that shows whether or not you're an effective both offensively and defensive player 5-on-5. So, you know, I think my second last year I played in Montreal, and I think I might have been like plus 10. and the rest of my team was minus 20. So that year I'm like, yeah, plus minus does matter. I think it is reflective of the job that I did five-on-five, that I was better than many of my teammates who scored more points

because they piled them off on the power play, but were minus 20 players. So I think that it was important then, less important now, but I still do think say what you want about it, and I think you're right there. It's not nearly as important. I think generally people accept that. that if you are significantly better or worse than the rest of your team,

then I think plus minus is a stat that tells you something. Maybe not everything like we once thought of it did, but it tells you something. If everyone in your team is a plus player and you're minus 19, telling you something. Yes. And I'm sure you can find other possession numbers, analytical numbers that would also support the reasons why you're minus 19. But so, yeah, it has changed.

I think we don't use that. that number in the media or in our analysis nearly as much and don't give it nearly as much weight. Even the most staunch anti-analytical people preface their plus-minus comments with the wall. Believe what you want about plus-minus, but it's plus-minus is whatever. They recognize that it's not what it once was. So it has changed since I stopped playing.

And you laugh about the numbers, you know, because back when I played, that's all we had to go on. Yes. They don't have all the advanced stats from when I played. They kind of started them in my last year only, which was like my worst year

of my career. So I wish, I wanted, I want to know what I was like. I want to know what my numbers would have been

for my previous 11 years. I wanted to know, I would like to know, I thought I was a good defensive player. I thought I was a good possession player. I thought I was a good

five-on-five player. I'd like to know, though. I don't know. I'm sure you can dig in the numbers and find that out. I bet my, you know,

my shot suppression was good. for a winger. I bet I was good at that, but I don't know. I'd love to find out, but I don't know. And until somebody goes back and rolls through all those game cases, I don't think it's ever going to happen, maybe I won't, but I wish I did. Well, do you think you're sort of in the minority there where you actually kind of care about that stuff? Because just from my interactions with former players, a lot of them can kind of, you know, shrug it off. And I mean, maybe if the numbers painted them in a favorable light, they'd like them. But, you know, if they're bad, they'll be like,

well, that stuff's all garbage. None of that matters. But I'm kind of curious, like, it's tough to tell sometimes, right? Because I've had discussions with people about Patrick Wall, for example, where he's the most vocal guy in terms of kind of dismissing Corsi and everything like that. But from what I've heard, it's sort of, you know, he's putting up a brave face, or he's sort of, it's a little gamesmanship where, of course, he's not an idiot. He's been around the game long enough where he knows that it's not good if his team

keeps getting out shot by massive totals, but it sort of is what it is. trying to maybe paint it in a different light or kind of, or mix things up on people? Yeah, I probably is, but you should ask what he thinks of PDO when they made the playoffs and Barley was a president. I bet it was pretty good that year. So I'm sure he was pretty well aware of it and the reason why they made the playoffs in its first year coaching. What was that reason almost exclusively?

But yeah, of course, whatever you want to call the stat, if that stat is painting your team in a negative light and some reflective of your job. job that you're doing coaching, then anyone is going to be likely to diminish the importance of those numbers because they don't want to acknowledge that their team is not playing a sustainably successful way. So, Patrick Wobie is no different than anybody else. But I think, you know, a lot of players former, whether my generation or even before me, yeah, it's not something that they invest time understandably and try to figure it.

figured out what it all means. And they don't really care nor should they have to, especially if they don't work in the hockey industry. So, you know, they're just watching as fans like they were as players, and that makes sense to me. But more so, again, I'm not trying to validate my career as being any better or worse than I know that it was, because I have a pretty keen awareness of where I stood as a hockey player. Not great, not terrible, somewhere in the middle. Right. And whatever the number suggests, probably wouldn't change that. But I'd be more curious. because the whole essence to me of the analytics movement is do the numbers support or refute what you think you're seeing? Right. And if they support them, how do they support them?

And they refute them. Why? Why are the numbers inaccurate or why are what you're seeing is inaccurate? And I think that conversation is incredibly helpful in trying to understand what's going on in the ice. why do I think this guy's really good when the number suggests he's not? Or why do I think this guy is no good when the number suggests he are?

And then you think you dig deeper to understand by using your eyes and numbers to figure out what's going on. I think that really is the beauty and the value in analytics. It's not everything. It's not nothing.

It's somewhere in the middle. I'd like to see if what I perceive myself as a player would have been matched up by the numbers. And if they weren't, I wonder why not. But I don't think I'll ever have that opportunity. All right, Mike, thanks for taking the time to chat, man. That was a lot of fun.

What games are you doing coming up here? You know what? I got down the stretch, a few more Canadian games. So I got Florida and Montreal. I'm fascinated to watch this because I don't follow Florida as closely as some of the other teams in the league. I have not seen them play live once. You know, I didn't know how good they were going to be

beyond that first line and first pair. but I want to watch them. I want to see they look like they are a threat to me. I don't know probably well enough to say one way to the right now. So I have them against the Canadians down in Florida this weekend. I have a Barnberg or Columbus in Toronto on Wednesday. Oh, yeah. And then that's a Matthews ball.

That's really. And Columbus making a strong coach one again to get to get back into it. And then one more game in the following Saturday in New Jersey to finish off before we get to the real fun, which will be the playoffs. and those are always the best time of the year to do my job. So are you in the playoffs, let's say in the first round, are you going to be just doing one series, or are you going to be kind of bouncing around and doing different games?

I don't know for sure. Certainly last year it was different with all the Canadian teams that made it working for sports men and Rogers. So I don't know for sure. If I had to guess, I'd probably say we would primarily be doing just the one series. But if that series were to end early in four, five games, then you might bounce out for six or seven in a different one, but your number one focus will be one series, and I don't think we'll be doing too much

else besides the one that we're doing in the first round. But I could be wrong. I've been wrong many times before. Well, when you know which series you're doing, let's get you back on and we'll kind of, after you've done your prep for it, we'll dive into it. Yeah, that'd be fun. Sounds good. Cool, man. We'll talk soon. All right, thanks. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at SoundCloud.com slash HockeyPedocast.