The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 77: Playing The Blame Game

Episode Date: April 11, 2016

Jeff Marek joins the show to help perform an autopsy on this year's Colorado Avalanche, weigh the pros and cons of the current draft structure, and take a look at prospects will be worth following in the next couple of week. Here’s a quick rundown of the topics covered: 1:45 The grind of the 82 game season 8:45 How much of the blame should Patrick Roy take? 26:00 Coaches potentially available this summer 31:30 The pros vs. cons of the draft system 44:00 Line changes 47:15 CHL Playoffs 50:30 The Memorial Cup 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. 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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Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitri Filippovich and joining me back by popular demand, the one, the only, the only. Jeff Merrick. Jeff, what's going on, then? So you got my wife's email then? Is that the popular man? Get him out of the house or get him down to the basement to go do a podcast with him? That's good. You respond to your fans, Demetri.

That's good. Well, I mean, I've heard that you also have your own little podcast going on and you do some things on the side other than your HockeyPedia guest appearances that you know what? It's funny because my wife asked me this a while ago. She's like, what's happening with your career? You seem to be doing like a million different things. And I'm like, I've kind of looked at it now.

as I need to, considering how media keeps shrinking and getting smaller and smaller, I'm kind of looking at my career now like a venture capitalist in that you invest in about a hundred things, hoping that two will pay off. So it's like shotgun style of work, try to do as many things as you can and try to keep yourself employable. Well, the reason the media is shrinking is because you're just taking all the jobs. No, that would be Gort Stelic these days. That guy, I swear, does not sleep between hosting the morning show on NHL radio doing pre-and-post

game for the Toronto Maple Leafs filling in on Hockey Central and doing various other radio and television shows. I swear he's a vampire, that the man just doesn't sleep at all. I've never, come to think of it, I've never seen Gordon Stelich's shadow, so maybe there is something to that. Yeah, that's possible.

Okay, so let's get into it. I don't know what we're necessarily going to talk about, but we're going to riff a little bit here. I think that the first thing we could start with is, sure. The past couple weeks have been, I don't know, if you feel the same way, but the past couple weeks have been really just kind of a grind for me

where I think after we reached that, mid-March point, I was like, okay, I'm definitely ready for these games to really start mattering here and for the playoffs to come around. And I don't know, maybe it's been like this for years, but this year in particular, just kind of hammering home the idea that 82 games is just way too long. I wonder if that's a by-products. I think a lot of people have felt that way too, and I know I've felt it as well. A lot of people around the shop that I talk to have. I wonder if that's a byproduct of a dud deadline. That normally trade deadline gives you that, you know, you sort of always look for benchmarks and little moments where you're going to get a push.

you're going to get a boost? And normally trade deadline does that. A bunch of guys change jerseys. There's some new excitement. How are they going to match? All the games, although they're not new, there's a little freshness to them. Like every, you know, a playoff contender gets a fresh coat of paints. And maybe considering how the trade deadline this year was pretty soft, although we did have

the volume of trades, we didn't have anything, you know, jaw dropping or staggering, at least not a deadline we had before that, you know, Andrew Lad being the number one candidate there. I wonder if the weak trade deadline had anything to do with that. But they're definitely right, Dimitri. There was that vibe post-trade deadline and even heading into the final few games of the season that, you know what, let's get this over with and let's get the games meaning something. I wonder if that's because we've seen pretty much the entire set teams for close to 82 games in a row now. Yeah, I mean, we've got this love triangle going on in the east with the Flyers and the Bruins and the wings.

And that's been interesting, particularly lately since they've sort of been playing each other. back and forth, but I mean, none of it seems very consequential, right? Like, I don't think any of those three teams are going to wind up making some sort of serious noise and making it to the Eastern Conference finals or representing the East and the Stanley Cup final. Like, it's not like, even last year where you, everyone was just waiting for the Kings to turn it around and that was an interesting story. And it felt like there was more going on.

This year, just like, I don't know, we're never going to wind up seeing the schedule reduced because it'd be pretty much just the owner is flushing money down the toilet. Like, that's never going to happen. But it's such a shame, right? Because you think about it, it's like, okay, we could, if we removed even, like, let's say, cut it down to 75 games for each team, all of a sudden, you can remove a couple of back-to-backs, and there's going to be fewer injuries and performance is going to rise. And it would just be funner for everyone involved.

But I guess that's not the way the business works. I'm with you, but it's not just the owners, too. It's the moment the players signed off on salary linkage to revenues. All of a sudden, the idea of a shortened schedule is right off the table. Because not only do the owners don't want it, the players don't either. I mean, less games means less revenue for them when it comes time to just splitting up the pie at the end of the season. So it's interesting because I've always felt that the 82 games season is really considering how the game is played and the speed of which is played and the rate of injury and how tough it is to recover. I'm with you.

I think we'll get overall a better quality of hockey if you reduce the schedule. I just can't see the owners or the players going for it. The one thing that I always, in the beginning of the year, I always say the same thing. If I could say one thing to Gary Bettman every single year, it will be this. Get your game out of June. Whatever it takes, get the game out of June. Have this thing wrap up sometime in mid to late May. But the minute the player signed off on linkage, there's no way that's going to happen.

It's only going to be more and more and more and try to get as much revenue in the system as possible. Is that really the one thing you would say to Gary Batman? Now, there's a few things. A few more colorful things than you can't say on the podcast. I'm in the minority, I think, on this one because I don't think that he's the monster that many people make him out to be. I know people still don't like the lockouts. I get that. I understand that at times he can have a personality that's grading.

I, you know, some of the interviews that he's done, I know get on a lot of people's nerves. I know Canadians tend to get their backup about the commissioner. But for my money, you'd be hard-pressed. find anyone remotely as close to doing the amount of overall good that Gary Betman has done for the National Hockey League. And I know maybe I have to turn in my citizenship when I say that because you're a Canadian, Merrick, how can you say that? I see the commissioner, you know, behaving like anyone would do in his position.

Like, let's not forget, he's not a president. Like this isn't Frank J. Calder. This isn't Clarence Campbell. This is a commissioner who, yes, yes, he sets the agenda at this point. And yes, he is the most powerful man in the game, but he still does work for the owners. And as such, he has his marching orders and he has a job to do. And I defy you to find anyone who would behave otherwise. And that includes you and me, Dimitri Filipovich, where are we given that job?

Yes. Well, I mean, that is an important distinction where he's working for 30 of the richest people in the world who have different objectives than you, I, or most of the other fans do. Let me ask you this question. at any of those owner meetings, how many times do you think the conversation has revolved around, how do we get more money in the pockets of the players here, boys? Yeah, probably not very many. Exactly zero. So it's a fight, and that's, you know, the nature of how this thing is set up to begin.

Yeah, no, I mean, and it's sort of a thankless job where, I mean, I guess we're seeing it a little bit in the NBA with Adam Silver where he took over for David Stern and he sort of has a very high approval rating right now. but if you're in the job for long enough, eventually, you know, someone's going to have to take the fall off or anything that happens. Yeah, and you wonder, too, you know, sort of what's the end game for the commissioner right now? Like, clearly he's in the process of writing the legacy. He wants to be there for the 100-year anniversary. I mean, he wants to be the commissioner of record when that happens.

You know, starting to write, you know, various legacy positions in the NHL. I still think one of the final, maybe one of the final actions that the commissioners, does in his role before he rides off into the sunset as handy, owners of billion dollars and say, boom, there's two teams in Toronto, drop might check me out on Facebook. But I'm curious to see now because, you know, we see it with, you know, you look at someone like David Branch, who runs a CHL and the Ontario Hockey League as well. He's very much writing what his legacy is going to be.

And a lot of that revolves around cleaning up that game, whether it's through fighting, whether it's, you know, getting the financial house of all of his franchisees on in the Ontario Hockey League, expansion for the expansion into the United States and securing those markets. Like all these guys towards the end,

you know, they stop just worrying about the nickels and dimes and start to worry about how history is going to remember them. And I'm pretty sure that somewhere in the back, in the back of Gary Bettman's brain is he doesn't want to be remembered as the lockout commissioner that I think he wants to be remembered for more than that. He may want to be remembered.

as a lockout commissioner for the owners. But as far as the great book of hockey and how that's written, I'm pretty sure Gary Betman doesn't want to be called the lockout commissioner as part of his legacy. It's there, but I don't think he wants you to be the overriding narrative of the writing story. Yeah. All right, let's talk about Patrick Waugh a little bit here because of the years where, speaking of legacies.

Newvious one. You're a good person to talk about this with because you follow the CHL pretty closely and were aware with the job he did in Quebec in the queue. And so it's interesting because anytime I ever comment on the aves or Patrick Waugh, basically the responses are decidedly split into two camps, right? There's people that agree with me. And then there's people that live in Denver. I get it on our podcast too.

So like after Matthew Shane scores his 30th goal and celebrates and, you know, God forbid someone have fun or or try. to take something positive out of this dreadful season Colorado's had. And I wrote about this today, but what, 15 guys scored 30 goals last year and 22 or so are scoring it this year. Like, it's a, it's a legitimate accomplishment. It's not what it once was where it's like, oh, everyone's scoring 30 goals. What's the big deal?

And it's the first time he's done in his career. So I mean, I thought it was completely silly to kind of get mad about that. There's many other things that he could have kind of picked apart, but he chose that, I guess. It's very, very locked in on this idea of character and playing the right way, which teams that are losing generally do. But, and so what happened was after I started talking about this, people were like, oh, like, you've got it all wrong. Like, Patrick Kwa is actually a great player's coach. And then I was reminded of how Louis Domingue, when he was playing, or Domingue, sorry, when he was playing for Quebec, I think it was the playoffs in the queue, he sort of had a rough series. I don't even know what the details were, but Patrick Gwa was calling him out about it,

and then he fired back on him on Twitter and called him one of the worst people he's ever met. And I don't know, like, am I wrong here? Is this not a trend where Patrick Gwa seems to really just kind of pick apart his players rather than ever focusing on the stuff he's doing wrong himself? There's a lot there. Let's begin with Patrick Gualt at the Quebec Ramparts. And with the Quebec Ramparts, he was exceptional. He was outstanding.

He won a Memorial Cup. He put together outstanding teams. Year in and year out, the Quebec Ramparts were a powerhouse in the QMJHL. You can do that in junior when you can hang the NHL carrot in front of players. You can do it when you're not just a coach, but you're also the general manager and you're also the owner as well. So he exerted the most amount of control he had over all of those players and even over television as well. I don't know if I've ever talked about this publicly, but for the longest time, at SportsNet,

we would always get criticized for not having Quebec Ramparts games on television. I don't think I've ever told this story before. I wonder if I'm allowed to. Oh, okay, I'm going to tell a story. No one is the best thing. Don't worry about it. Oh, yeah, no one, especially not at our shop, Dimitri. So for the longest time, we never had Quebec Ramparts games on Sportsnet.

And they were a powerhouse team and they had superstars and they were going, deep in the playoffs and they were winning Memorial Cubs. And it was like a dynamic team and a superstar, you know, a sexy NHL name behind the bench. It was a great building to shoot in as we saw last year when they had the Memorial Cup. And the question was always, why isn't SportsNand showing Quebec Ramparts games? And it's a legitimate question. It certainly was.

And we used to get asked it all the time. And we used to have to always tiptoe around answers and always us scheduling this and we have this other game on Friday Night Hockey. Well, we were just in the queue last week, and he sort of tiptoe around. The real issue is that Patrick Gua is the owner of the Quebec ramparts, the minute you take a game national, you surrender all your rinkboard advertising,

and Patrick Waugh didn't want to do that. So there you go, folks. The real behind-the-scenes story of why we never had, up until Patrick Waugh's sold, we didn't really have Quebec Ramparts games on Sportsnet. But, I mean, there's that kind of control that Patrick Gua had over that organization. A lot of players, like with any coaching situation, a lot of players will love you. A lot of players will hate you.

Louis DeMing didn't have exactly the greatest experience. But, you know, if you talk to some more of the, you know, some of the players that you would think would have, you know, certain challenges. And Alexander Radulov and Mikhail Grigorenko, you know, he was fantastic with those players. He was really great with those guys. Look at what he got at a Radula. He got a Moral Cup. He was always really great with those guys. But the problem to me with Patrick Gua is, and we can get into the specifics of how he's handling the Quebec Ramparts, the Colorado Avalanche.

But if you look at the history of this game, Patrick Gua has two things working against him. One, the list of goaltenders that turned into success. successful head coaches is short. I mean, you can count it on two hands. Goaltenders are, the old joke, what do you call the people that athletes hang around with? Goaltenders are a very unique creature in the game of hockey in that they don't necessarily have to understand how other positions work, how an entire game works. Generally, they spend their entire lives focused on stopping pucks.

And that's it, not creating offense, not defending. not breakouts, not in these types of things. You can learn it along the way. You can be successful with it up and to a certain point. But when it comes to the NHL level, generally, goaltenders struggle as head coaches. And maybe Emil Francis was the best one of the bunch. But generally, it doesn't really happen. The other thing he has working against him is, as a superstar, the list of superstars

that have turned into head coaches in the NHL and found any success, whether it's, you know, Wayne Gretzky or Rock and Richard only lasted a couple of games to Quebec Nordiques is even shorter than the list of goaltenders turn head coaches. So right away, he's got history against them, not once but twice. And early on, I talked to one of his players with Colorado, early on when he first took over the avalanche, there was some success. And he was playing a really innovative style in his own zone. It was right out of the pages of junior hockey. he was playing man to man. You don't really see that in the NHL ever.

Every now and then, you'll sort of, coaches will go to it, but never for a full game, let alone a full period. But Patrick Waugh was doing that. And I talked to one of his players at the end of the season. I said, what was up with that the first couple months of the year, the first couple of months of the season? And he said, yeah, it was kind of neat. It kind of made us felt like we were playing junior hockey again.

We're playing man to man in our own zone. He said, but the problem was, After a couple of months, the book was written on how Patrick's playing in his own zone. Every other team started to set casual picks in the defensive zone. And then all of a sudden, this revolutionary idea in the NHL wasn't really working anymore. And since then, many have said, you know, after that, Patrick Waugh was kind of out of tricks. And you've talked about this plenty on this podcast and various people have written about it as well. there is no long-term success when you consistently get roasted on shots against your net.

When your shot differential is as steep as it has been in the past few years, they call it out of Avalanche, you may win the odd game here or there. You may have the odd winning streak if the schedule allows. But long-term success, it is completely unsustainable. And so far, Patrick Watt hasn't had an answer for it. As for Matt DeShane, I understand how the hockey guys, guy in him might not like that. It's a 4-0 score at that point. And the hockey guy may say, you know what, kid, just bury your head. You know, 30 goals, that's great. But focus on,

you know, focus on the game that night, not the individual achievement. And it's a very natural thing for hockey people to feel that way. I don't think it's a great thing for Patrick Gwa to bring up, given the other problems at this franchise. It's one of those things where if there's like, if he was asked about it at the press conference. That's the thing that really struck me about it. He wasn't asked about it. He went out of his way to bring it up. It's one thing for someone to ask you, what did you think of the Shane doing the big celly after he scored his 30th? And then you respond to it. It's another in the course of one of your answers to go out of your way to bring it up. That's what really struck me.

Like it really bothered him. And it's at a time like that where I say to myself, here's someone who's looking for a distraction. Here's someone who's looking for something to get angry about so he doesn't have to address the elephant in the room, and that elephant's been there for a couple of years now. I think there's two layers that we can kind of discuss when evaluating all the problems that I've had, right? There's the first part, which is the player personnel portion of it, and it's sort of still unclear to us how much of a role Patrick Waus had

in actually assembling this team. I think we can sort of conclude from everything we've heard and read and seeing that he's at least been consulted on all the moves. Everything's passed by. He's been at least asked about it and given his two cents, if not actually pulling all the triggers and making the final decisions himself. Well, hang on. Just pausing that for one second,

because the one area that we saw where Patrick Gua, although he didn't have influence on the pick because he didn't make it, but when you look at the 2014 drafts, all right, Patrick Waugh wanted the defensemen. Their scouts gave the Colorado Avalanche. Connor Bleakley instead. And we all know what happened between Patrick Waan Connor Bleakley and how he went to war with the player right away.

And we knew that there was no future whatsoever for Conner Bleakley in the Colorado Avalanche organization. And I think that is a direct result of Patrick Waugh saying, I don't want this player, I want a defense. It's funny. At the Memorial Cup last year, we talked to Patrick. And he said, listen, we need to start. Now, we were shocked because normally, you know,

coaches, general managers always say we're going to draft the best possible player available regardless of position. And Patrick essentially told us, no, we need to start drafting position. We need to start drafting for a position because that's what we need and we need defensemen in this organization, which is why they pulled the Ryan O'Reilly move and they wanted to pull Zadouroff, Zadouroff out of the Buffalo Sabres organization to get them there. Otherwise, they probably would not have drafted Miko Ranton. It was a 10th overall last year.

They probably would have gone for a defenseman. Okay, so let's assume. So there is, there is some. fluent there from the coach. Yes. Okay, but let's assume that let's give Patrick Gua benefit for the doubt here and say that all the bad moves that they've made in terms of, in terms of signings, I mean, giving a ton of money to Francois Bocherman and bringing in Brad Stewart and Jerome McGillan, all this stuff that hasn't really worked out. Let's say he had no part in that, okay? So just fully focusing on the job he's done as a coach, which is his job

title. I have, I find it impossible to believe that let's say the Bruins missed the playoffs this year, Claude Julien gets fired. And all of a sudden, the abs of a change of heart and bring him in next year with this same team they have right now. I have no doubt in my mind that I don't think they'd necessarily be a great team all of a sudden, but they'd at least become more respectable in the 5-1-5 game. Like, they definitely wouldn't be the worst possession team in the league, registering 44% of shot attempts or whatever. Like they'd at least hover closer to that respectable 48, 49, 50% range. And that speaks to the coaching job.

Is that right? Like, you were talking about the man-to-man coverage in his own zone, and you can pretty much watch any single abs game they've played this year or even last year. And you look at it and the defensive breakdowns in their own zone are just mind-boggling. It looks like it's a group of guys that's never practiced together. It's like they just came together for like a drop-in beer league game. And all of a sudden they're like lacking communication and no one really knows where they're supposed to go. And I think you can't, you can't really blame that on the players. Like the personnel and talent itself isn't necessarily great, particularly on the blue line. But it's not so bad that they all

a sudden have justification to be like the worst team in the league in terms of possession metrics and I don't know. I think that falls solely on Patrick Law and I think that it's very fair to question the job he's done as a coach. Yeah, I don't disagree. If you're going to be there to do the victory lap when you win the Jack Adams, you have to also be there when people are saying, what are you doing with this organization? And I think that this team, and this is where, you know, this is where we can curry favor with the abs fans here Dimitri. This team is a lot better than they show. When you look at the quality

of player on this team, this team is a lot better than they show. Normally, I always defer to composition over coaching when it comes to teams, but when I look at the Colorado Avalanche, I say to myself, how is this team not better? Like, not consistently better.

How is Eric Johnson not better? How is Tyson-Berry is real good, but I still don't think we've seen anywhere close, to the best that we're going to get out of Tyson Barry. The one thing that really did set this organization back, and I understand why it happens because you get your backup about it,

and you feel like you're going to war with the player, but you always have to remember you don't have to like someone to do business with them, man, losing Ryan O'Reilly was tough for them. And I know the offer sheet really burned them, and they hated it. And, you know, it's always interesting the way that, you know, when a player gets, you know,

sent packing. You know, the GM is quick to point out that it's a business. But when a player behaves as if it's a business, the organization gets their backup and spurns them and then ends up making what will probably turn out to be a very misfortune a trade. I look at the abs and I say, if you could put Ryan O'Reilly back on this team right now, Dimitri, even with Patrick Waugh behind the bench, how much better is the squad tomorrow? Right. No, definitely a lot better. And I agree with you where you go with roster composition over coaching because it's very easy to fix one of those things. But if you don't have the requisite players, there's not really much you can do. But the kind of

pause I'd have here is I'm just based on Patrick Waugh's sort of stature and the way he's regarded around Colorado. Like I'm worried about for their sake whether they're going to side with the coach over the players. And like I wonder this summer, for example, I don't, you know, know anything. than other people don't. But like, let's say a guy like Matt Duchin, like what if they all of a sudden decide to kind of, he's not part of the solution and they trade him for 70 cents on the dollar for no reason.

Like it's stuff like that where he could really kind of make a long-term impact here that they'll feel even after they finally realize he's been the problem in fire him. You know what I mean? The minute after Patrick Gwa said that about Matt Dishain in this press conference, if I'm a general manager, I have Patrick Gaw on Speedd. Hey, yeah, you know what, that, Deshain kid. Where does he get off? What a head case. You know what? Let's see if you'll do any better in our program. We'll take that headache off here. We'll give it. But here's the thing. I mentioned this when Patrick Gwaugh first came in. It's always challenging when you bring in legends. Whenever you hire someone, I think in the back of your mind, you have to, and everybody does. You have to say to yourself, okay, what's the exit strategy going to be here? Like, you can only, you're not, you know, it's not going to be a cradle of the grave situation for Patrick Gaw behind the bench with Colorado. So what is our exit strategy? Somewhere down the road, Patrick Waugh will no longer be the coach of this team, right?

Like long gone, you know, are the Lindy Rough days in Buffalo and the Barry Trots days in Nashville, I guess you can say Jack Capueno with the Almitters now too, but those days where, you know, you're the coach for 10 years. And I remember asking people like, okay, well, that's great that they've hired Patrick Waugh. What's the exit strategy? How do you have a graceful exit here, knowing that he is a legend. and how well he's thought of in Colorado. What do you do? And you wonder if any decision will be tied to any decision that Joe Sackick makes.

And if Joe Sackick decides that maybe he wants out, maybe this isn't what he thought this was going to be. I don't think Patrick, I mean, Patrick wants to stay in the NHL. I think that's clear. I think Patrick one day is probably going to coach the Montreal Canadians. Probably when Patrick decides he's ready. If not that, then when the Quebec Nordiques get their, you know, expansion slash relocation team, don't be surprised if it's someone like Patrick Gua behind the

bench, maybe someone like Julianne Breezebois, acting as a general manager. You always have to ask yourself, when you bring in a legend in a position as volatile as the head coaching position, what is your exit strategy? To your point, if Claude Julianne becomes available, the day after the day after the Ottawa game on Saturday, Cloud Julian is available. Would the Avalanche being in a position to react quick enough to capitalize on that, or are they still thinking in their heads, how do we do this with Patrick's still here? I definitely don't think they're in the position yet right now, as far as they're concerned, that they jump on that, right?

Like, they seem pretty committed to at least kind of bringing this back for another year, which I think is a mistake. But this could be a really good summer for potential coaches, right? Like, let's say the Blues lose in the first round through Blackhawks. It's very easy to envision Ken Hitchcock being available. the ducks, the ducks have an embarrassing defeat or even, you know, maybe they just lose again to the kings in the second round. And they decide, you know what, like, we've been really good for a few years here now, but there's only so far we can go with this incarnation of our team. We're going to go with a different coach, which would be a mistake in my mind, but it's very conceivable that could happen.

And all of a sudden, Bruce Boudreau's available. So there's three guys right there that could very possibly be available just because of kind of, just circumstances out of their own control, but would all be vast improvements for, like, what, like 20 teams? So it's going to be a fascinating storyline to follow this. Yeah, and Ken Hitchcock, you know, the one you mentioned right out of the gate, I mean, he may be, you know, one of the finalists for the Jack Adams as well. Yeah.

Of what he's done with the St. I mean, last year, you know, almost exactly a year ago, he was dead man walking in St. Louis as, you know, Ken Hitchcock sort of twisted in the wind and no one knew what exactly was going to happen to St. Louis Blues. and then he ended up getting the one-year contract. What a season he's put together for the St. Louis Blues. But you're right, if they get scotched in the first round, what happens to Ken Hitchcock?

So out of all those three that you mentioned, so Claudeau, Ken Hitchcock, and Bruce Boudreau. And the first one is all about making the playoffs. The last two is about playoff success. Can you see any one of those three in Ottawa? Oh, man. Have they already kind of committed to Cameron and I say that as someone who they haven't? I don't think so. I think now the issue there though is

I think this I counted this yesterday at work I think this would be Brian Murray's seventh higher. Yeah. And they're still paying Paul McLean, right? Like I can't see them paying three different coaches at once.

I get that. I get all of that. And I know that, you know, Ottawa is not going to be a cap team. It's going to be a budget team. And, you know, the one place where, you know, just to be perfectly blunt, Ottawa's kind of gone on the cheap side of things is behind the bench. Like they don't have, like, but what's Claudio? You know, three million dollar, three and a half million dollar coach at the Boston Bruins.

Think Ottawa's going to have a three, three and a half million dollar coach? Probably not. But if Eugene Melnick was serious and every, you know, every player will be evaluated and everything is on the table and this. Well, then, you know what? You can only go cheap on your coaches for so long. until you're going to say to yourself we have, like if you're Eric Carlson. Yeah. Right? And Steve Eisenman

went to this. Just make Eric Carlson the coach. Just make Carlson the coach, the captain, you know, bottle washers, and Bonny driver, whatever. Do the whole thing. And he's already doing everything for that team. Pretty much. Pretty much. And he's got to be, he may be the most frustrated man

in all of hockey right now. He was looking around and he sees a lot of, you know, there's some younger players on that team that some of that may not be as committed as Eric Carlson is. And he may see an owner who's not committed to spending to maximize his career as he should and not investing in that coach that they should probably have behind the bench. Well, I mean, think about it this way.

Look at that Atlantic division, especially with what happened to the Canadians this year and it being sort of wide open because of that. like Eric Carlson's having this generational season for a defenseman and he's playing pretty much half of every game. And they can't even string together a passable enough team around him to make the playoffs. Like that that's a pretty embarrassing situation. Yeah, that's why I think everything is on the table, including the young guys for the Ottawa senators this offseason. That's what I'm saying he's got to be the most frustrated man out there. Like I'm sure like if you're Eric Carlson, he seems like this is the height of

my power right now. And I'm going home. You know? It should have been. You're right. When you look at the Atlantic, this should have been, like Saturday afternoon, it should have been gigantic. Like Saturday afternoon, Ottawa and Boston should have been an enormous game,

not for one team, but for two teams. Right? Like that, when I looked at the schedule around Christmas time, I was like, oh, man, game 82 is huge. You know, a lot of uncertainty in the Atlantic. You know, Ottawa's got a shot at this. This is great. Another masterstroke, another masterpiece of luck in the NHL.

They've got Ottawa and Boston going in Game 82, and it's a nice Saturday afternoon game. Oh, this is going to be spectacular, getting you ready for Saturday nights. But not at all. And if you're Eric Carlson, how do you not go home this year and say, man, I'm being wasted here right now? Yeah. Completely wasted.

Yeah, I'd be pretty irritated. All right. Let's talk about the draft a little bit because I haven't had this discussion with you. I've brought it up a few times in past shows with other guests, but I haven't gotten your thoughts on it. Like, where are you at? Because there seems to be this very strong and it's building in strength pushback against the, first of all, the system and sort of this idea that it's incentivizing tanking. And then the draft itself, which is where I'm at, where it feels sort of weird that I understand they're being compensated. very handsomely for it, but that you're basically like taking 18-year-olds and forcing them to go

to places where they might not necessarily really want to go on in certain occasions. When we talk about that, we tend to focus on the high-end guys. And we focus on, you know, where does Austin Matthews want to go? Where does Connor McDavid want to go? But, you know, where does some of the players, you know, lower down in the draft? It's not as if they're going to be able to pick as well. So really when we talk about, you know, forcing players to go somewhere where they don't want to go, really only what we're doing is talking about the high-end guys. Those are the guys in the position to choose.

The other guys aren't necessarily in that. Like there is some, you know, philosophically, I had this conversation with Damien last year at the draft. Geez, where was the draft? That's where we, sunrise, of course, yeah, in Fort Laude. We had a restaurant after the draft on the Saturday. And we're talking about, you know, with salary Catholic, why do you even need the draft? All the league is now is about managing resources. Everyone's got the exact same amount of money.

You know, why do we need to have a triple salary cap system? You know, there's a team cap, there's the individual player cap, and then there's the rookie cap. I mean, it's already triple cap. Why do you need that when you have a fixed amount of money that every single team is allowed to spend? Why not just, you know, make everybody a free agent? And then on draft day slash signing day, you decide.

how much money you're going to spend to bring in young hockey players. I understand that. And there is an intrigue there. And I get that, and a lot of players may favor that. And I know a lot of really, really intelligent people around the hockey community think that that would be the sainer approach. And it does feel a little more egalitarian, although we only tend to focus on the high-end guys and where they want to play. Because they're the ones that would really be in the driver's seat by way of choosing. Because all the teams would want them.

You can't say that about the players. later on in the first round in rounds two through seven as well. But for me, I think the NHL has every other league licked in two regards. One, the jersey. There is no finer hockey uniform than the hockey jersey is spectacular. I also think they have them licked by being able to change players while the play is still going on. We can talk about that other today or another podcast. And the other place is the draft, specifically that first round.

I love the way the NHL does it. I think the drama with the announcing trades and the way they handle it is fantastic. The arena setting. It's almost to the point where I would actually favor turning trade deadline day into a draft-style TV event. Where, you know, that's the day where there's 30 tables in a rank. Like, hey, who gets trade deadline day this year? Oh, it's Columbus. So a nationwide is 30 tables and all the teams are there.

And by way of television drama, you know, you see Philadelphia picking up the phone and calling Anaheim or walking across to their table and having that conversation. And then Gary Bettman going up there to announce all the trades. I think it could be a wonderfully spectacular TV event. That's how much I love the way the draft is set up because the way the draft is done now in the NHL is not just about the kids and where they're going, but it's also another trade deadline day. And it's a trade deadline day that even spills into the Saturday. And even like we saw this year in sunrise, did you go to the draft?

Were you in sunrise last year? I wasn't. No, I went to the Philadelphia one two years ago. Okay. The Philly one was interesting one too because there were those deals on the table for Aaron Ekblad, the one from Tampa and one from Philadelphia as well. So that got everything buzzing. And then there was the one owner that wasn't allowed onto the floor,

which was interesting. And as we all heard, he was screaming at the general managers last year, president of his franchise demanding to be let on only to see his president and general manager say we don't have room for you here we only have room for our scouts and then that owner had to go up and watch the draft from a private box fuming you can guess who that was um but interesting in last year's draft on the saturday after everybody left there was one table where everybody stayed and it was an argument like it was loud it was shouting it was screaming it was fist pounding on the table. This is after all the cameras were off and everyone's tearing down. One team stayed.

And this argument, we couldn't exactly hear what they were saying, but you could tell there was like, everyone had a legitimate point to make. And it was an issue where everybody had dug in their heels and they were fighting for it. You know what that team was? Pittsburgh Penguins. And I can't prove it, and I don't know, but if I'm going to throw a dart and guess what the conversation was around, it's probably around Phil Castle. because all throughout that all throughout sunrise in those two days was is Pittsburgh going to pull the trigger on the Phil Kessel deal? And it almost seemed as if they almost had the deal and then they backed off of it. And then there was at the table everybody pounding their hands on head, their fists on the table trying to make their point both pro recon for Phil Kessel.

This is a long-winded way of saying I can see both sides. And at the end of it though, maybe it's just the old guy in me. I love the way the draft is done. I really do. And it's one of my favorite days, and it's a great tent pole event for the National Hockey League. But I can understand the people that say, hey, listen, man, it's all about managing your resources.

It's all about managing your nickels and dimes. I'd be fine if there was no such thing as a draft. And on free agent day, you go and sign your players, whether they be kids or otherwise. Yeah, but the thing is, is like, I don't think that would be as fun, right? like, I'm not necessarily a big, like, college sports guys, so I don't care about it anyways. I'm sure a lot of people that are really into it do. But, like, national signing day, for example, it's like, that's not a thing that

particularly interesting me, and especially in this regard with so many insiders and Twitter and all the online media, like, all this stuff would get leaked so far in advance, that there would be no intrigued on that actual day. Like, we'd pretty much know where at least all the top guys were going to sign, like, well in advance of it. So it would just be, like, I don't know. I understand, like, I'm of two minds here, right? And I understand it's not a very popular thing to do in 2016.

You generally need to pick one extreme and just stick to it regardless of what happens. But like, I, the theory behind the draft and the system definitely bugs me because I think it's very flawed. And there's some natural fixes to it that the league would never really explore because it's way too out of the box and it would really rock the boat. But at the same time, the draft itself is fun. like the event leading up to it, kind of discussing it, and then actually going to it, watching it, and then discussing all the picks afterwards for months. Like that, it's fun to me.

Don't forget, I work in television, and this is a great TV event, so I am biased. So you can say, well, Merrick, you work in TV. So, of course, you're going to love it because it's a great TV event. But here's another wrinkle to all of it. What was the greatest, what was the most, I mean, Connor was a fascinating one last year because it's Connor McDavid. But as far as a team, like a 30-team,

NHL universe. What was the best draft lottery we've ever seen? Sydney Crosby, where all teams had a shot at them. Right. Now, it was weighed a little more heavy for other, you know, for certain teams, but everyone had a chance to get Sidney Crosby. I wouldn't be against the idea of not just non-playoff teams, but every single team getting a shot at the first overall pick. Every team having skin in the game. You know, we do so much in this game, I'm going to a little high horse here, we do so much in this game to only highlight the home team, to only highlight a finite amount of teams that can participate in what will become the first overall draft pick. I think we do ourselves, and then take a shot at my brothers and sisters in the broadcasting

fraternity here, but I think we do ourselves a real disservice in the NHL with regional hockey packages in that they tend to only focus on the home team at the exclusion of the other teams who may go further than the home team but has a home team audience been educated or been led to be interested enough in the stories on the other side of the rink to care once the home team is gone and the answer is no to that so we fail the capital and NHL when it comes to regional broadcast and this idea that all we can do is tell every single story from the home team's point of view. I understand the distinction between regional and national. I get that. I understand a home recall and I really do love a home recall. I think it's one of the great things about sports

and I may be in the minority, but I enjoy it. But not at the exclusion of making the other team more, make the other team interesting. Don't just make them the enemy and something to be hated and disdained. Because when your team is done, and that team goes on, the NHL needs your pocket of fans to know something about that team or even be remotely interested in that team. So by the time the Stanley Cup final rolls around, we haven't lost 28 markets. So how would you feel then about the idea of every single team having a shot at the first overall pick?

Because I think that what we do is we focus on those non-playoff teams and they get to participate in this lottery and they get to participate in the big sexiness that is the first few picks. If it's just managing numbers and managing, you know, how much money you're able to spend for players, should it matter if the Stanley Cup, if the Stanley Cup, like let's say Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup this year. One, with the Panarin bonuses, they're going to have to do, they're going to have to jettison a player next year already. And two, if they get the first overall pick, they pick up Austin Matthews, they're going to have to jettison someone else, probably someone more significant because he's going to come in and he's going to hit his bonuses.

And he'll be a three and a half million dollar hockey player. And then that player goes out into the system. I mean, I'm very in favor of this, especially like if you try to describe the system right now to someone who has no idea about anything regarding sports and you're like, so basically, yeah, we're doing this lottery where the best player available, we're deciding where he's going to go and we're rewarding all the teams that have done a horrible job this season. It's like, why are you guys doing that? Well, we want to try and sort of make it even.

But actually, it won't really matter because there's only really four or five teams that consistently are deciding the Stanley Cup finals anyway. So it's all kind of pointless. Well, welcome to the PDO cast, starring your host, Ed Snyder. Yeah, it's, it's, I would be very in favor. Even if you made the odds extremely minuscule, like just the potential that one of these really, really good teams. teams could wind up with a guy like that is, is amazing to me. And then I was actually at Thomas Ransaw on yesterday and we were

discussing the idea of the proposed idea of the wheel. And it would be so fascinating come trade deadline day where like, let's say you knew that a contending team was going to have this really high pick. All of a sudden, that's a crazy asset that they could potentially move to really change the dynamics of the upcoming playoff race.

And it's just another kind of story to follow. So I think there's a lot of good to come from it. Yeah. I mean, I just, I love everything about it. I really do. I hate to keep coming back to this whole, you know, the whole TV thing about it. But we've gone. We get it, Jeff. You work in TV. Do you? No, I know, I know. Such a loser. Yeah, whatever TV boy. Of course you like it, because you want to host a sucker one day. But it is, I'm always sensitive to the idea of devaluing things that really make hockey distinct.

And I think the draft is one of them. The way the game, like the way the game looks. I still think much more can be done with it to make it look distinct. And this may seem like a stretch given this conversation, but I spend so much of my time of obsessing about line changes. Line changes while the play is still going on. And wholesale line changes to me are a fascinating thing in sports. You get in hockey that you don't get in basketball and baseball and football. I remember talking to Eli Gold.

It was a play-by-play voice of the Birmingham Bulls. Did I tell this story on the podcast? No. Okay, so play-to-play voice of the Birmingham Bulls, WHA in the early 70s, the mid-70s, I shouldn't say. So the Toronto Taurus WHA, they pull up stakes and they go to Birmingham, fresh market, right, Virgin Market. And Eli, I'm talking to in 2005 during the NHL lockout, and I said, you know, of all the things that fans in Birmingham enjoyed about the Bulls, what was number one? So it's the WHA. So I thought it would be like, you know, the big slap shots, you know, the NHL was a wrist-shot league, and here comes to WHA.

it's a slap shot league. I thought it was a bench clearing brawls because they were crazy and psycho. And the guys with big mustaches and long hair because NHL was buttoned down and WHA was rock and roll. And what Eli said to me was fascinating. I've never forgot. He said what fans would stand up and cheer for is when players would change while the play was still going on, specifically wholesale line changes. This is Birmingham. They don't have hockey.

And all of a sudden they see five players go, off the ice and five more come back on information, they would go berserk because you don't see it. And one of the things that I can't stand about the game, we see it all the time in the playoffs, is when there's a line change of more than one or two players and the opposing team has the puck, what do they do? They throw it at the bench trying to get too many men on the ice call. I say to myself, you're trying to wreck one of the most distinguished, there's one of the more distinguishing factors in the game right now.

One of the things that makes hockey different than all these other popular North American sports, and you're trying to kill it by using line changes to draw too many men on the ice penalty. Because at the point where I would put that lacrosse box right out in front of the bench, and the moment you're in that area, you're considered off the ice. Just so we never get to a place where line changes, are anything other than sacred in the game and not just something you can maybe whip a puck towards and try to draw a chinty too many men on the ice penalty.

How about that? How about that hot take for the day? Oh man, I love it. I love Jeff Merrick's hot takes. How about line changes? Yes. Aren't I interesting? What an interesting guy, Merrick is. That reminded me of, was it the GM meetings this year where it was right in the middle of all the concussion talk and goal scoring and,

And then there's all these big kind of hot button issues. And it comes out that the GM spent a day talking about like goalies playing the puck or something and how that's like slowing the game down. And it's like, everyone was just like, wait, actually, this is like what they're spending time discussing. Like this is the most relevant thing they can think about to kind of fix the game. Yep. I know. This is what you're assessing about today. Really?

Yeah. So before we get out of here, let's discuss the, the CHO playoffs a bit because I know that you do some fine work with your podcast and doing the games for. Sportsnet. Where are we at with it? Because I think the interesting thing this year is that none of the top three picks are involved in these playoffs. So who is Matthew Kachuk, I guess, the highest guy that's going to go in the draft that's still playing? Matthew Kichuk of London, Pierre-Luc Dubois, of Cape Breton.

There won nothing up on the St. John's C-dogs after a big win yesterday. St. John's kind of run into a little bit of injury problems. And Dubois's been outstanding. But yeah, could Chuck O'Leo Levy is, you know, it's funny, I talked to one scout and I said, you know, rank the defenseman for me from your team. This is an NHL team who's going to be picking in the top six. And I said, rank the defenseman for me.

So I'm curious about the defenseman, because we focus on Matthews and focus on the two fins a lot. Give me your defense. Because I wanted to hear where he had Jacob Chikler. Right. And he said, number one, Olio Levi, London Knights. So, okay, you can make that case. He's fantastic.

Number two, McEl Sargatchew, defenseman for the Windsor Spitfire. I said, cool, all right, that's good. Number three, Charlie McAvoy of Boston University. I said, hold on a second here. Where do you have, where do you have Chickren? We have Chikrin fourth. I know a lot of teams that have Chikrin as the number one defenseman. And many people had them coming in as a number two prospect overall in the draft this year,

right behind Austin Matthews. But now Sarnia has been eliminated. A lot of it, you know, Travis Kineckney got injured. and that hurt the season, that big blockbuster deal between Sarnia and Ottawa, was a jaw dropper this year. I think I saw that Zaka himself was going to come play for the devils in their final game, I think.

Is he going to do that? I know there was talk about that when Sarnia went out. I mean, he almost made the team this year. Right. Right. I mean, yeah, he's done being a junior hockey player. This guy's already the term pro when New Jersey has a really good one in Zaka. But yeah, as far as, you know, the top prospects,

I mean, Mikkel Sergatchev, who's going to be a top 10 pick. Windsor got eliminated by the Kitchen of Rangers. So he's out. But Yulevi's still in there. Matthew Kuchukh is still in there. Pierre-Luc Dubois is still in there. Julian Goce, we should mention as well, the biggest upset in the history of the QMGHL. I want to say it's close to 40 points separated Valdoor and Blanville-Bois-Briand,

and they beat him in six triple overtime style. Philippe Sanch with the triple overtime heroics. Samuel Montembo, for all you Florida Panthers fans. he was outstanding in net one of the great performances we've seen in his careers I wasn't too hot on Florida picking him last year but he's been exceptional this season he was great in that series

so Julian Goce of Valdoer has been eliminated as well so as far as high-end players at the draft that are still participating there's the pair from London and the one kid from Cape Bret cool well we'll be following that and as we get closer to the Memorial Cup I'd love to get you back on and we can kind of preview that although I know you'll be doing like

Are you coming on podcast? Are we going to get you to Red Deer? You know what? It's up to the powers it be at Sportsnet, and maybe some of them might be listening to us right now. So if they want to give in to peer pressure and send me, I think it would be a lot of fun, but we'll see. The PDO cast in Red Deer? Come on. Oh, nice.

It seems like a natural fit. I got to hang out with you. I've heard all of Todd Warner's stories. I'm sick of someone to hang out with. Yeah, we can get Damien Cox on the podcast. It'll be fun. He'll do it. Yeah, of course.

Emma will do it in a second. I'm good with Damien now, man. Are you guys? I'm not even sarcastic. Yeah, no, it's great. Damien is perhaps, and I know that, I know the people that traffic and opinion tend to make enemies pretty fast online. Right.

And you see that with Damien and you see that with Steve Simmons. And, you know, anyone who's currency, you know, for like the 20, 30 years that these guys have been doing it, When that's what you do as your occupation, I mean, you can really alienate and isolate yourself pretty fast. The one thing has always impressed me about Damien is how he hasn't turned into, I know people may laugh when I say this, but I've been on the road with the guy. I work with the guy. He's not this guy. He hasn't turned into a curmudgeon. He hasn't turned into someone that hates the sport that he covers because that has sort of turned the world against him and he takes it out on the sport.

like he's a guy that goes into every broadcast with a genuine curiosity about things and doesn't have his mind made up despite, you know, what you may say, evidence of the contrary with Damien on Twitter. But to me, he's one of the more misunderstood guys. And I always default to someone who I believe his heart is in the right place. And while Damien and I differ greatly on a lot of topics when it comes to hockey, I can never doubt that at the end of it, He's coming from a place of compassion and not confrontation, and I'll default with that guy any day of the week. You know who I'll default with any day of the week? What's that?

Jeff Merrick. I will always default with him. Well, let's do some defaulting then in Red Deer, buddy. You got to get yourself to the Memorial Cup. Sounds good, man. Thanks for coming on again, and we'll chat soon. Thanks, Philop. The Hockey PEOCast with Dmitri Filipovich.

Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud. Rocky PDOCast.