The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 86: Staying The Course

Episode Date: May 13, 2016

Jonathan Willis joins the show to help unpack all of the action Round 2 of the NHL playoffs brought us, and look at what to expect from the respective conference finals matchups. Here’s a quick rundown of the topics covered: 0:30 Victor Hedman's dominance 5:00 How Tampa Bay has overcome injuries 8:30 A Different Penguins Team 12:00 Phil Kessel busting lazy narratives 14:30 Matt Murray's rise to stardom 18:30 Capitals need to stay the course 22:30 St Louis Blues 29:00 Stars issues in net 35:00 Where the Predators go from here 39:00 The Sharks lethal power play 48:15 Oilers pursuit of defensemen Every episode of this podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher and can also be streamed right here on the 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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and joining me is my good buddy Jonathan Willis. Jonathan, what's going on, man? Hey, great to be here again. Yeah, you've been on a couple times already, and the feedback's been good, so I thought I'd have you back on. It's been a few days since we've recorded the Hockey PTO cast, and obviously there's been a ton of playoff action

that's happened since then, and so now the round two's in the books, and we've got our conference finals, matchups, all sorted out. I thought I'd bring you in here, and we could kind of break this stuff down, one by one. Sounds like a plan. Cool. Okay. So let's feed into the East Coast bias and start off with that side of the bracket first.

And I think the lightning are a team I wanted to talk about right off the bat here because I think it's impossible to overstate just how dominant Victor Hedman was in the five games against the Islanders, right? Oh yeah, he's been tremendous. Actually, if you go back to the regular season results, and part of it's a result of them sometimes going with seven defensemen, but of the top defensemen in the league, I don't know if there's anybody who got fewer minutes than Victor Headman, and I think that really hurt them in the regular season, whereas in the postseason, particularly with the absence of Anton Strollman,

they've really had to lean on him. And honestly, I think it makes the team look better when he's playing those heavy, year minutes that he wasn't playing during the year. Right. And you'd think that, you know, just by looking at him, a guy of his stature should be able to carry that burden. And I think that that's a really good point because I've looked at his statistical resume throughout his career and the one thing I've always circled back to, there's no doubt his production and his impact on the lightning. But the thing that's kind of still, we've been waiting for when thrusting his name into the Norris discussion with some of these other truly elite defensemen in the league is that he's generally around that

22 and a half, 23 minute range. And I'd personally, there's something to be said for the 82 game regular season. You don't really want to ride your guys into the ground. And they have had that luxury of spreading the wealth a little bit. But I would like to see him get into that range. And in this series, he was playing like 28 minutes a night and it really showed. Yeah, absolutely. And I wonder a little bit, I go back and forth on whether or not it makes sense to just sort

of rest these guys. I do think it certainly hurts Hedman's Norris chances when he's only playing, you know, less than 23 minutes a night. Right. But that, to me, is more of a secondary consideration to the fact that, you know, maybe it hurts Tampa Bay's chances of winning as many hockey games as they could. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it hasn't really hurt their chances the past two years when it's, when it's come to the playoffs, I don't think. No. So, so in that round two series, I mean, he was doing everything. And I think that, um, the broadcast, team made a really good point of how he neutralized John Tavares after that game on

outburst. But I think that for this lightning team to really match up with the penguin spinning it forward in the Eastern Conference final, I think that they're desperately going to need Anton Stramman to come back and not only be back in the lineup, but be at least something resembling the player he's been for a couple of years now at full health, just because they managed to cobble it together against some of this weaker competition, but just watching guys like Matt Carl and Andre Schuster and you mentioned the seven defense lineup that John Cooper seems to love with guys like Matt Teramina and Luke Witkowski and I promise I'm not making these names up these are actual NHL players. I just don't think it's going to get it done and even

even some of the guys who are more more reliable that you'd expect you know could at least be keeping their heads above water in terms of Jason Garrison or Braden Coburn I think we'll struggle immensely with their foot speed against this this Penguins team that just has blazing speed all throughout the lineup. I completely agree, but I have to just take a moment and give a shout out to Matt Taramina, a member of the 2005 Texarkana Bandits, one of the few North American Hockey League players to make the NHL. So congratulations to him. Yeah, yeah, no.

I felt a little Pierre McGuire there. Yeah, that was a good one. But, yeah, I agree. And particularly the guy who really stands out to me is Matt Carl. I know he wasn't used as heavily as some of the other players on the list, but he was playing almost 18 minutes a game in the games that he did play. And I don't know that there's any real evidence that he's capable of that kind of production. I've been a little bit disappointed. I haven't seen every Tampa Bay game through these playoffs,

but when I have watched them, I've been a little bit disappointed in both Garrison and Coburn. I like both players. I just, I was a little surprised that there wasn't. maybe a bit more reliability from them than there has been. And I think you hit the nail on the head with Strawman. Like Pittsburgh is a team that has three terrifying lines and you cannot get by with one really good defense pairing against them. Yeah, you definitely can't.

Okay, let's, we'll get to the Penguins in a second because there's obviously a lot to discuss there. But I think that for the lightning, in these first two series, do you think that the fact that they got through five, in five games and in both? both tries was more of a testament to how good they've played and how they've managed to overcome the injuries, the Strawman, Stamcoast, and even losing a guy like J.T. Brown, who's very serviceable for them early in that Red Wing series. Or do you think it's more so just an indictment against the two teams they've played? Because I think that it's, is it fair to say that the Red Wings and Islanders were probably two of the what, like, worst five teams that made the playoffs?

Certainly the Red Wings. The Islanders, I go back and forth on it. It kind of depends on how you rate regular season performance versus like, sorry, 82 game regular season performance over last 25 game regular season performance. The Red Wings certainly, either them or Minnesota, were the weakest team in the postseason to my eye. But I also think you can't sell what the lightning have done short. And to go as far as they have, minus Stamcoast, minus Stralman, that's massive. A big chunk of it obviously is Ben Bishop. And I know this is another story that's been kind of done to death, but it really does show you what Jonathan Drewann has been capable of and how badly that situation played out of the regular season and how happy they must be now that they didn't trade him.

Yes, no, he's been amazing. Nine points in 10 games, especially on the power play where he has five of those points and just watching him. I mean, it's all the stuff that when the entire drama was unfolding in the first place when they sent him down to AHL and then he demanded that trade and he refused to show up. But the thing that was puzzling to everyone who was really paying attention was just how obvious a fit it was, especially with a guy like Stamco's he would have thought, because Juergens showed just how elusive he is in the neutral zone and how dynamic he is with the puck in terms of all these no-look passes

where he's just flinging it across the ice, tape-to-taped, and setting guys up. And it would have seemed like a perfect fit for years ever since St. Louis left, really. They've been trying to find that guy to set Stamco's up in his wheelhouse for those one-timers. They've been trying guys like Coulorn and Callahan who don't really seem to mesh stylistically with Stamco's. And Drew Ann would have seen like that perfect playmaker. And they just never really gave it a legitimate shot. So it's kind of cool to see just how productive he's been in these games so far. Well, the crazy thing is you can make a case that Drew on isn't even hitting what you would expect him to do yet in these playoffs.

He's got a 4.5 shooting percentage for one. And then if you look at the lightning lineup, I just have the sheet open in front of them. me here. Everybody on the team with at least three points has played, with the exception of Brian Boyle, has played more ice time per game than Drew Ann in this postseason. He's averaging less than 17 minutes per game. It's just incredible. You know, he's been given reasonably, I mean, not that he's been putting on corner or anything, but reasonably limited usage. He's not getting any luck in terms of shooting percentage. And he's still almost a point per game player for that team. Yeah, no, he's been, and he's been so fun to watch. Okay, so let's spin it for.

and discuss the penguins because I think it's it's just remarkable how different this team is from the ones of years past that we've seen flame out early in the playoffs. There's there's so much speed and there's so much depth and as you alluded to earlier I think this is why a guy like john cooper is making a couple million dollars a year and is being relied upon to to game plan against them because i certainly don't know really what i would do if i was forced to match up with them just because you can't it's not one of those situations like in years past but you can say, okay, if we manage to just put all of our eggs in the basket of just slowing Crosby down a little bit, we'll have a good chance beating up at least the other two lines that Malkin isn't on on this team.

But that's just not a luxury that anyone playing them right now has. I mean, they're really rolling four lines. Obviously, Crosby and Malkins' lines are still getting a lot of the attention. And just the sheer production of guys like Hagelin, Bonino, and Kessel on that de facto third line has been amazing. but even a guy like, you know, you're looking at Tom Koonockle and Matt Cullen scoring big goals. And the common thread all these lines have is they play with so much speed and they're just a nightmare to play against the neutral zone. So I just, I don't know, it just seems like a very difficult matchup for pretty much anyone in the league right now. I agree entirely with that.

I think the one thing that you would really zoom in on if you're any kind of old school analyst, like this is a a team that, to me, playing a physical game against, there's a lot of value in, and especially against their defense, because that blue line is, and I know you want to talk about the forwards here, but if you're, if you're looking at a game plan against the Pittsburgh Penguins, where does just hitting Chris LaTang every chance you get rank on that game plan? Because for me, it's right near the top of the list. Yes, it's definitely near the top. I mean, just look at the rest of that blue line. I mean, for all the depth, I just mentioned up front, it's really, it's remarkable that they won that game, I think, what was it a game for against the Capitals without him,

just because it was like Trevor Daly playing 30 minutes or so? Like, it seems crazy to me. Yeah, and Trevor Daly in the postseason, I was looking at this last night, he's got a less than, I mean, not that you really rely on the shot metrics over these 10 game spans or whatever, but he's at something like a 44% Fenwick rating in the postseason. And he's the only other guy playing major minutes behind uh behind uh behind letang like that that defense is really it's one name deep and i know that's an oversimplification but this is not a team with a blue line as much as there it's it's it's such a bizarre situation where they have the best forwards of any team remaining and possibly the worst defense of any team remaining yes but i mean at the same time just like we mentioned with headman

if letang is able to hold up and keep playing 30 minutes a night or so which is a really tall task and it's It's certainly possible to envision even if he stays healthy, his performance just deteriorating because it's really tough to play max effort and keep everything, keep all your rate stats up when you're playing that much. But if he's able to stay healthy for them and keep playing those minutes, then at least you can sort of cobble it together just because it's pretty much cutting the rest of the game in half. Yeah, absolutely. And that's been the game plan for Pittsburgh for quite a while now. And it's really all you can do with that blue line. I think maybe the most surprising name, I know you're based out of Vancouver,

but the most surprising name on Pittsburgh's roster has to be Nick Benino, right? Yeah, no, he's been remarkable. Just flashing so much skill and really fitting in perfectly with his nature of wanting to be more of a playmaker. And then Hagelin just retrieving all of those pucks in transition and setting them up, moving the other way. And then I think the other name is Kessel just with really, it's been a bad year for people. I understand that, you know, the Ducks lost another game seven and Boudroga fired because

of it and Ovechkin's team lost in the second round and couldn't translate a good regular season into postseason success. So people will always have those tired narratives to fall back on. But otherwise, it's been a pretty good year for busting the lazy stuff about how certain guys can't produce when it matters most. Oh, it's been a fantastic year for that. I know we'll get to the west. That's a great example of it.

but Castle in particular, I think, has had a fantastic postseason, and it's the kind of year that it just reminds, well, the standard for me, just because I grew up with it, has always been Brett Hull, how people said you could not win with Brett Hull, you can't win with Brett Hull, and then, you know, teams started winning with Brett Hull,

and you didn't hear it so much anymore. Castle, to me, is the same kind of ballpark, the idea that he's a guy you cannot win hockey games with, was always ludicrous. I do think it's interesting that, you know, his ideal center in Pittsburgh has been Nick Benino and not Malcolm or Crosby. And that does kind of fit in with his time in Toronto. But he's really shown that, and not just as a support player, because people say, well,

you know, he's away from Crosby, he's away from Malkin, he's out of the limelight. Well, it's pretty hard to be out of the limelight when you're leading the team in scoring. Yes. No, I think he's definitely been firmly in the limelight if you've been watching just how many goals he's been scoring. Yeah. So I guess the interesting monkey wrench in all of this is, Matt Murray's been playing remarkably well, and Ovechkin and his post-series press conference, I guess, cited the fact that he was really the difference in this series. And it's remarkable that Brayden Holby's probably going to win the Vesna and he, for all intents of purposes, got outplayed by a 21-year-old kid with, what, like 10 NHL games under his belt.

But what do you do here if you're running the Penguins and Flurry really is healthy? because obviously it's easy to say, okay, let's keep playing Murray now that he's been playing so well. If he keeps stopping 93 or 94% of the shots, he's seeing that it makes a decision easy. But let's say he has a really bad game in game one or game two, and all of a sudden, all those questions start creeping up again about whether you should go back to Flurry

or whether you should kind of stick with him. Well, for me, I think he's been so good over the course of the postseason, and not just over the course of the postseason, because people talk about this guy, you know, sort of they frame it the way that you just did with your question. You know, he's got 10 career in NHL games or whatever the number is.

But if you look at his American League numbers, like they've been off the charts for years. This is a guy who a year ago had a better than 940, say, percentage in the American League. I'm sure he was north of 930 this year. He's, and to me it kind of speaks to the way we look at goaltenders, because it's such a weird position. And it's,

of all the positions, I think it's the one that you can make the key. case that the NHL as a whole misjudges, miscalculates, mispens, just hoops the position. And I understand why there's a lot of hesitation to go with a young goaltender, because if you go with a young goaltender and it doesn't work, it can get really, really bad. But a lot of these guys, I'm sorry, not a lot of these guys, there's a couple of situations where, you know, a young goalie gets a shot, as Murray did through injury, and just runs away with it.

And everything in his AHL career says that this is a guy who, you know, with a potential, I don't want to say franchise goaltender, but I mean, if you're posting a 940 plus save percentage in the AHL, what else do you call him, right? Yes. So this is a surprise, but on one level, it's only a surprise because it's happening so soon. And normally guys that age do not get a chance to do this sort of thing. Right. No, that's a very good point. and you're definitely right in the sense that he's really shown us other than the fact that he doesn't have a lot of experience, which doesn't necessarily preclude him from being up to the task. He's really shown us nothing in his statistical resume to make us think that he's not the best option they have right now.

And listen, I'm definitely take everything I say about goalies with a grain of salt because I'm on the record saying that I thought, you know, a guy like Ben Bishop or even a Brian Elliott who will discuss in a little bit, I thought I was very, very highly skeptical of both of those guys for years, and all they've done is post really good above average numbers and now are leading their teams into the conference finals. So what do I know about the position? Well, it's one of those positions where, unless you're, you know, a real goaltending expert, I think you kind of have to, well, for me anyway, the way I look at it is that old Donald Rumsfeld phrase about known unknowns. I know that I don't know anything about it. So I just look at the safe percentage note for the past a lot of times. Which is, you know, that is definitely an admirable thing.

Sometimes it's tough, especially for people in our position where if there's people that rely upon you for information and analysis and opinions, it's tough to sometimes be like, hey, listen, I'm going to take a step back from this because I really don't know. I can give you an educated guess based on the information we have available to us. But you have to understand that it's far from. a given and sometimes it's easy to blur those lines and forget that. And we could all, goaltending is one of those places where we could all use a little bit less certainty,

I think, just because of the way the position is played out so often. I mean, one of the things you heard coming into this season was that Jonathan Quick is the best playoff goaltender that, you know, ever playoff goaltended. And he got lit up by the sharks,

and he's been lit up before in playoff series. But there's sort of a dominant narrative in people kind of forget that performances are highly fluid. There are so many different factors that go into it. I know we could probably spend the whole hour talking about how random goal tending is, but it's one of those positions to me where when you're wrong enough times about it, you kind of have to sit back and go look, these guys just are not predictable to the degree that we want them to be with the statistics that we have. Yeah, that's well said. Okay, let me read some numbers for you here. 56 wins, 120 points, plus 59 goal differential.

All those led the league this year and all of those were the numbers put together by the Washington Capitals, who once again fell short in the second round. I understand it's human nature to try and make too much of things instantly and when they go south and to overreact, but I can't believe we're doing this all over again with the Capitals. You would think that you would learn from past history and adjust and not make those same mistakes. all over again. But once again, we're having people wondering whether the capitals need to make some sort of fundamental changes this summer to finally get over the hump, which is, which is endlessly amusing to me.

Well, you know, San Jose and St. Louis really had to blow up their core to get to the contract. Oh, wait, hang on. Yeah. Washington's an interesting team to me. I think they are a team that you can look at and say, you know what, there's some room for improvement there. Right. As good as their regular season was, they were not. a really truly dominant five-on-five team by the shot metrics over the course of the year.

I know there's some suspicion that maybe that just comes because they, sorry, because they sewed up the first place so early in the year and then they kind of coasted the back half of the year. I don't know how much stock

I put in that. Right. But this is obviously a very good team. And the thing is, when you're in a really close playoff series, it's what?

A shift of two, maybe three goals and things go dramatically different. To me, it's just so close that this is another place where maybe humility comes in a little bit and you go, okay, I put together a really good hockey team, it fell two goals short

in a playoff round, I'm not going to go back to the drawing board and start from scratch here because sometimes these things are just outside of your control, so you fix what you can, but I don't think you abandon the whole core is flawed. And the last thing I'd say about Washington just because it just popped into my head here is the last time they

were a really successful team for a long time ran into some playoff turbulence. They blew the whole thing up, not the whole thing, but, you know, Canning Bruce Boudreau, bringing in new coaches. And that turbulence set the franchise back. It did not improve things. And that to me is the lesson that Washington's management should be taking into the summer. Right. And I honestly don't even think there's many sort of fundamental changes to make. Even if you, wanted to, right? Like a lot of these core guys are locked up long term on unreasonable deals and, you know, they've got a good coach in place and a good goalie. And I think there's some stuff fine-tuning around the edges that they could do, particularly on the third pairing and the

bottom six, just bringing more speed into the lineup in case they do have to play a Tampa Bay or a Pittsburgh again late in the playoffs next year. But I think that's true for every team, right? Like no team is perfect in the sense that you can just bring it all back without making any sort of marginal adjustments. Like even the penguins, as we just mentioned, as good as they are. And as well as they're playing, they could desperately use a facelift on their blue line this summer, regardless of how their postseason winds up shaking out.

So I think that, you know, if you're running the caps, you just really bring this all back and just hope for better fortune next year in terms of both the bounces and the draw in terms of the bracket. Yeah, I think for the most part, you're right. You can play around the edges and make those little tweaks that can make a big difference. and maybe you get lucky and you get the chance to make a sutter for Benino kind of trade the way Pittsburgh did

and that gives you some extra dimension inside your bottom six. That to me is where Washington is it's not in a position where it needs to make huge changes if it can add an impact player or two in those sort of depth roles somebody who's maybe a little bit underrated that could go a long way

but it's a very good team. It came very close this year. Yeah, and definitely did. And a team they could draw some which is lessons from in terms of patience and waiting things out is the St. Louis Blues. And let's discuss them because you watch some of these broadcasts for their games and and so much time and energy is spent by the people calling the game discussing the gritty way the blues play, the way they exemplify the Western Conference style where you have guys like Bacchus and Brower and Ryan Reeves who are heavy players that punish the opponents with physicality down low.

And fine, that's true. But I think there's an important distinction to be made here in the same. sense that there's a lot of functionality to the blues where they're not just throwing hits for the sake of throwing hits or just dumping the puck in because it's the easy thing to do and they're just content going back and playing defense it seems like there's a concerted effort and plan here and i think that the way they beat the stars was they really did a good job of throttling them in the neutral zone where they congested everything and they created a lot of offense off of their awesome forecheck right it's funny when you when you frame it that way because

I think I've heard more about Steve Ott in these playoffs than I have Alex Petrangelo. And it just, you know, it makes you want to pull your hair out. Like, this is a bit player who is certainly part of the Blues team identity, but that is not the sole reason they win. St. Louis has been, you know, St. Louis has sort of been a poor man's Los Angeles Kings for a number of years now. I think you could say to make a similar case for this year and that they're a good but not brilliant, Pock possession team. To me, the big thing with the blues is really the adjustments that Ken Hitchcock made coming out of the first round. Vladimir Teresenko played, I can't remember exactly what the number was, but he played something around 17 minutes in that game 7 win where St. Louis had the lead for most of the night.

And that was more than he had played in either four or five of the first round games against Chicago. and Ken Hitchcock was taking just a ton of heat for the usage of Teresanko, who is his best offensive player. And to me, the fact that he changed from round one to round two was a fantastic sign. And there was a line in game seven that he told the NBC broadcast that basically they couldn't just sit back and flip pucks in because if they did with the lead, because if they did that, it's what Dallas had done in game six. And to some degree, it's what they did in game seven. where they went up to nothing and then Chicago got 14 straight shots and tied to game.

So it's a team that has made adjustments over the course of the postseason and the kind of adjustments that don't fit the big strong grinding team narrative. And I mean, they certainly are that team, but they've gotten smarter over the course of the playoffs about playing a more complete game. Yeah, no, they have. And you're right about that that's an important kind of thing to, to look at in terms of how they play with the league because that is a very Ken Hitchcock thing. He's been known to be conservative with leads and sit back and it's cost them as it does with

everyone really because score effects are a very real thing. And we saw a little bit of it in game two where it nearly cost them that game and they eventually wound up winning in an overtime. And then after that, it was much smoother sailing. And I was a little bit surprised that it honestly took seven games for them to finish the stars off. It's, I guess, it's a testament to just the immense talent in the really good year Dallas had themselves. But it felt like watching these games, they were dominating the run of the play for most of the series. There were a few bursts here and there in typical stars fashion where they'd really get a full head of steam and they'd look unstoppable for a few minutes. But they did a really good job of limiting those sequences.

And after game one, it really felt like it was just mostly All St. Louis. It's pretty well, yeah, game one is maybe the best game that the stars played in the series, I thought. But then, you know, it's funny because we say that, and yet game seven, if not for the goal tenting, could have gone in a very different way. It didn't feel to me like St. Louis was that brilliant early, but all of a sudden they're ahead by three goals. And of course, in saying that, I have to give them credit because they had that really close off side call. They lost, I believe it was the two nothing goal, and then they came back and scored two quick ones. And that's something you don't always see. Sometimes when there's a goal called off, it kind of feels like it deflose.

lights the team. And that's something you have to give them credit for. But in the end, you know, this was a really close series. It went six games. And then the Star is goaltending just kind of blew up. And St. Louis, you know, coasted to a game seven win. Well, here's my analogy. It's, it's game one, definitely, the Stars played really well. And the Blues looked a little discombobulated. And I think that it's like, it's like when you're playing against the Stars, you're sort of in a different time zone. and you just need that one game to sort of adjust to their speed. And it really felt like after they got that game under their belt, the entire series as a whole was drastically different.

And it's probably a testament to adjustments that Ken Hitchcock made and the players themselves. But they're really good. And they have a ton of skill. And it's easy. Yeah, guys like Steve Aud and Ryan Reeves, as you mentioned, get a ton of the attention. But, I mean, look at the skill on this team with guys like Fabri and Schwartz and Terracenco.

and they've done a really good job of drafting over the years, and considering they're not necessarily a cap team, it's helped them a lot in terms of remaking the way they play and how they're capable of scoring goals, and it makes for a fascinating Western Conference final against the Sharks. Absolutely, and drafting is a huge part of it, but the one acquisition that I'd really key in on, just because it's been so criticized, including by me,

over the course of it is the signing of Paul Stasney. You know, people say you can't really add these impact players via free agency. A lot of the time, it's hard to get them. You end up overpaying for them, et cetera, et cetera. But Stassany in this postseason has been really excellent and given them. I mean, between him, Bacchus and Lattera, they've got, and you can toss Patrick Bergland in there too, but they've got exceptional depth down the middle. You look at the roster, they've got exceptional depth at center and on right defense,

which are maybe the two most important skating positions and the two hardest to fill. Right. And that's a testament to drafting, but it's also a testament to trade and free agency. Like it's been a well-run team for a long time. Yeah, it definitely has. All right, the stars, I think they're in an interesting spot because it's important to remember that only Ovechkin, Pavelski, Ben, and Perry have more goals and Tyler Say again since he came to Dallas three years ago. And he didn't play a single second in this series.

And it'd be tough for any team, really, to overcome not. having arguably their best player available for any other games but you look at what they're going to do moving forward and they have some questions to answer right i gotogoski demurs chris russell and jordy ben are all ufas this summer which is pretty much their entire blue line and they have 10.4 million dollars tied up and letting in any emmy for two more seasons so i just it's it feels like we're going to do this all over again where next year they're probably going to be one of the best teams in the league again they're going to lead the league in scoring and come playoff time, we're going to be dubious again of whether they're going to be

able to make enough saves to actually sustain a long playoff run. Yeah, I think they're in a very interesting position. They went out and signed anti-Niami in the summer specifically so they wouldn't have these problems in net that had, you know, kept them out of the postseason and it didn't work at all. And now they're much worse off because they don't have an empty spot on the roster and they don't have money to play with the way they did a year ago. so they have to go in and they have to fix the goal tending. That's a big deal.

The defense, I don't know how they're going to be able to hang on to all those guys. Chris Russell, I really wasn't that impressed with this postseason. I think I'm being generous there. It's just, to me, it's an odd, and not that Dan Ham Hughes is a world-beater, but it's odd to me that they would go and get Chris Russell rather than a guy like Ham Hughes out of Vancouver. It was just an odd fit at the time, and I think it cost them. I know Demer's spent some time with the Diyah, but for the most part, that DeMeras-Russle-pairing was a pairing, and it wasn't nearly as good as they needed their second pairing to be, particularly against St. Louis. So this is a team that's in a lot of trouble.

Wow, I shouldn't overstate that they're in a lot of trouble because they still have all that fantastic talent up front. But they do have a lot of questions, more so than most of the teams that get this far in the postseason have. Right. Yeah. I mean, there's like, what, 20, 20, 22 teams that would do anything to be in the position they're in. But once you're talking about this next tier of, you know, the teams that could legitimately win a Stanley Cup, you do have to start nitpicking and looking for awards. And I think it's fair to say that the stars have legitimate questions. I mean, it's surprising to me.

I guess it makes sense just how much they had in. invested in them that they would just at least see if they could get by with it this postseason. But like a guy like James Reimer, if he really was available for a fourth round pick, it just, I just wonder whether this postseason would have looked a lot different for them. Had they had a guy like that in that, a net, rather than switching back and forth in game between EME and Letton and just not really knowing what they were going to get at any given moment. Absolutely. One of the weird things for me was just the treatment of course.

goaltenders at this year's trade deadline because Rimer was so cheap and he went to a team in San Jose that, you know, we'll get to them, I guess, in a minute. But if you look at the teams that needed goaltending entering the playoffs, San Jose was not number one on that list. Nashville, Dallas, there are a number of teams that were higher up. And not just Rimer, but, you know, Chad Johnson in Buffalo is a guy who had a fantastic year pending free agent. You have to think he was available and not that expensively. And nobody picked him. up. This to me is very, it's very questionable. And I know the stars had two goalies and you don't want to get into that, you know, three ring circus situation. But when your goaltenders are as bad as the

stars were over the course of the year, I think going into the postseason, it's not an expensive upgrade. You have to be willing to pull the trigger on that. And the stars are one of those teams that they're sort of the opposite of most teams. There are a lot of teams with a great goaltender. that miss their other problems because the goalie covers them up. The stars are one of those teams that have such a good offense that it covers up the very real problems on their back end. And we talk a lot about Tyler Seagan. We talk a lot about Jason Spetsa, like that one-two punch at center.

But over the back half of the year, the emergence of Radik Foxa, and particularly with Al Shemsky, the chemistry that those two players had, I think that was a 56% Fenwick or C-Linewerexie line over the back half of the year. It was ridiculous. it was really good in the playoffs. I think you could make a case they needed more minutes than they got. But this is a team that if you compare them to Pittsburgh, we just talked about, they have three, you know,

with Segan Healthy, they've got three really effective lethal lines. And that can get you a long way, but ultimately it can't overcome a defense in a goaltending situation as decrepit as the one that they have. Yeah, yeah, I mean, in the regular season, their 5-15, say, a percentage as a team was, I think they were sandwiched by the hurricanes,

and the Canadians, and those are two great examples of teams that were pretty good elsewhere, but, you know, Price being out and then Cam Ward not being very good, really just sank both of those teams this season, and the stars managed to overcome it just because they were scoring so many goals and were such a good team otherwise, but you're right, this time of year where you're playing really good teams that don't have those same flaws, it's tough to overcome. I just pulled up the chart because it's fascinating to me. Dallas ranked 27th in save percentage at five on five this year. Nobody below 22 overall made the playoffs outside of the stars.

And that just speaks volumes about how bad their goaltending was for the entirety of the year. Well, and then I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but the next team on that list that did make the playoffs was the National Predators who were going to discuss right now. It was. It was. Yes. Yes. And the Predators are interesting because I remember I actually had you on this podcast, I'd say with about a month left in the season, maybe six weeks. And we ran through a list of legitimate contenders at that time. And you were, I remember, really high on the Predators and deservedly so. They have a very good team. And they can roll their lines and their defense is really good. And the big question was the goaltending. And I don't think it's necessarily fair to pin it all on Renee, obviously, especially in that game set. they gave up, what, five goals, and it's going to be tough to win whenever you give up five goals. But I guess a little bit uncharacteristically, it was really the blue line in front of, the defensemen in front of René that did them in.

And I don't know, I don't know what you do with the predators. I think it's also another one of those teams where it's not necessarily a sexy opinion, but you just, I guess you just bring it back. Because the two big elephants in the room are Shea Weber and Peca René, but it's hard to see them getting rid of those contracts just because they are so cumbersome for so many years moving forward. Yeah, I don't know what you do about Pecker-Rene, but he is, he was a problem this year. He was a problem in the regular season. He was a problem in the playoffs. If you go back to the first round, they had Anaheim, they won the first two games in Anaheim, and they had a, you know, a dominant hold on that series, and they lost three straight, and Renee surrendered 11 goals, had a

save percentage well below 900 in all three. And then again in this series, you know, he played pretty well through four games. And then he had three really bad outings, surrendered 12 goals. Game six in particular stands out to me as a situation where that series probably should have been over. He led in that terrible third goal. Nashville managed to claw back to win the game, but that shouldn't have gone seven games. It should have gone six games based on his performance. And the team managed to win despite him there. And they couldn't it in game seven. So to me, Nashville this year really was a team that was a legitimate contender and was let down both in the regular season and in the playoffs by subpar goaltending.

And it's funny because Renee is a guy who has a big reputation and might be, I mean, not so much now after the year he's just had, but might have been entering the year the most overrated goaltender in the league. He's, and particularly you've mentioned the contract situation, and Nashville's paying two guys more than $5 million, and Renee's one of them, and they're a team that's a budget-conscious team. That's just an awful contract for them, and unless he can find the form that he had a few years ago,

or even last season where he was very good, they could be in a lot of trouble. Yeah, they could, yeah. I mean, he's making $7 million a year for the next three years, and it's tough. I mean, he's, what, 33, 34 years old? There's no real reason to believe that he's going to bounce back necessarily and suddenly elevate his play at this point of his career, even though he has had

past success. And it's always a shame when you discuss these teams that are so good elsewhere. And you put a concerted effort into building a meticulously building a group of 14, 15, 16 guys that are all jelling well and playing great hockey together. And then there's just one position that just kind of submarines the rest of the operation. Absolutely. And it's a similar situation to what has. happened in Arizona with Mike Smith a few years back, and you just kind of hope it doesn't end up the same way. Number one, because it stinks to watch these guys who were good, sort of lose the handle on their career. But, you know, if you've got a starting goaltender making north of

$7 million, especially as a budget team, and he's coming in with a sub 9-10 safe percentage, I don't even know what you do about that. I guess you try and find a cheap backup goalie, you know like Arizona did with devon dubnik uh you bring that guy in and you you hope he can carry the load for you on a on a on a budget yeah yeah uh the sharks man they're a they're a fun team there's so many characters and and and personalities and people to genuinely root for i feel like uh the approval rating of the sharks team is is pretty high especially in 2016 where on the internet it feels like it's very tough for for one team to be universally beloved and i'm sure there's fans of the kings and other teams that aren't necessarily very,

uh, very partial to this team. But it feels like the sharks are just, uh, are hockey Twitter's team, it seems like. It's hard not to pull for them a little bit. It's the same sort of situation with St. Louis, but, but more so because it's been going on longer,

whereas just you're so used to seeing them make the playoffs and then disappoint that, you know, you kind of just feel, well, it's, it's their turn. It's, it's about time that they get to go on this lengthy run.

And it's such a good team. It's such a fun team to watch. It's hard to dislike San Jose. Yeah. Well, it's a really fun matchup between the Blues and the Sharks here in the Western Conference Finals because it's a fresh matchup for one. And two, it's what we've been discussing for the majority of this podcast. It's a reminder that sometimes if you're a really good team,

it's okay to wait it out and let things that aren't necessarily in your control fall into place. I think that for the Sharks, I was listening. some point in game seven i'm not sure if this is still still true maybe they had another play a power play opportunity or two they didn't convert on but they were eight for 18 in that series against the predators at at one point during that game seven and and they're just so lethal right now with how well pevelsky's playing and finishing and how how proficient joe thornton has been in getting him the puck and the way brent burns is moving it around i think that if the blues want to beat this team they need to make a very concerted effort to not

put themselves in the penalty box. And that has sometimes been a problem for the blues. You're right. It's just a fascinating matchup that way. Maybe the most interesting thing for me about San Jose, and I'm sorry, I'm going off topic a little bit here, is just that the coaching change they made a year ago, they brought in Peter DeBore,

who didn't have the greatest reputation after his time in New Jersey. And it's fascinating to me the way things have have shifted, it's easy to over read this because San Jose has been a good team for a long time. And when you're a good team for a long time, not a lot really needs to change. Like we've just discussed with Washington, you know, not a lot needs to have gone the other way for it to work out. And this year, it has worked out for them. It's just, it's very interesting to me that Peter DeBore is the guy behind the bench for this turnaround after the way things went down in New Jersey. I mean, how much has Todd McClellan been drinking in this postseason? Like,

He must be just like, just, just, you know, threw away his cell phone and just went to some remote island where no one can reach him. It just must be just, I can't imagine being that guy just watching this being like, oh, come on. Like, this could have so easily been mean because I don't think that Peter DeBur has necessarily made some sort of, you know, revolutionary earth-shattering changes to this team that have propelled them. It's a lot of the same casting characters doing the similar things they've been doing for years. and there's been little fine, fine-tuned adjustments along the way. But it is just a reminder of how cruel this business can be, where Todd McClellan is coaching the Oilers now,

and Peter DeBurr in his first year might very well make the Stanley Cup final. Yeah, well, I mean, I feel bad for Todd McClellan and his staff, and really everybody in San Jose, particularly, you go back to that year where they had a 3-0 series lead on the Kings, The kings look slow, the sharks looked fast, and it just all came apart. And it would have been so easy for it not to have come apart. It's incredible to me. And it's just if you're one of the people who was involved with one of those past sharks' teams and isn't involved this year,

I think you just kind of have to shake your head that, you know, this team is not that much different than the teams you were involved with. it just it got those little extra that that little that tiny little margin that separates success from failure and you didn't get it and they do yeah yeah I think there's an argument

to be made that if the stars had beaten the blues that these conference finals would feature the four sort of most aesthetically pleasing teams to watch in the NHL and we're going to have to settle for the blues who just have Latif. Mayor Teresenko, who's one of the most electrifying players in the league, and we'll probably

score a handful of goals in this upcoming series. So I think it's a pretty good time to be a hockey fan with just the high level of hockey that's going to be played in both of these series. I absolutely agree. It's going to be fun to watch. I was sort of, you know, half hoping for a Dallas San Jose matchup for the reasons you say just because it was going to, it had the potential to be one of those running gun high offense series that you just don't get to see very often. and San Jose St. Louis is a little bit more traditional in that you have sort of an offensive powerhouse and a team more respected as a defensive club.

One thing I did want to note sort of off topic here again, it's not one of those years where San Jose and St. Louis sort of dodged their old foes. You know, St. Louis, I know Chicago isn't the team that it was, but St. Louis had to go through Chicago in the first round. San Jose had to go through L.A. in the first round. These are teams that I think that makes it a bit more compelling

of a matchup because it's not like they avoided fate They went through sort of the old foe That had knocked them off in the past And this year triumphed And that to me is much more pleasing From a from a narrative standpoint Right and you know While you say that the Blackhawks weren't necessarily

The team they've been in the past It would have been very easy for those Blues team To, you know, revert back to those old, unfortunate their ways and and and kind of lose it all again right like they were up three one they they they lose the overtime game they they blow that game where they're up early in chicago and then the chicago goes in a massive run and then in game seven it was it was really tight so it's all of this stuff in the compose season is really just so the margin is so small as you mentioned and it's it can go either way so it's kind of cool to see that it's finally gone there away a little bit is showing that

there isn't necessarily some sort of a fatal flaw these teams have that prevents them from winning come the postseason. It's sort of evening out now. Yeah, absolutely. And both San Jose and St. Louis had moments, particularly in the first round where it kind of looked like they were slipping into old habits. LA, San Jose, game three, when the Kings win. And, you know, Drew Dowdy was saying, well, we got them thinking about it now. It's sort of right where we want them. Or St. Louis, you know, taking the.

that 3-1 lead and turning it into game 7. And both of those teams came out of it. And it's not what the narrative would have you believe what happened. And it's not even necessarily what you would have expected. I know for me, when I saw St. Louis sliding, I started wondering a little bit, like, is this going to happen again? Because those intangibles that we can't measure, it doesn't necessarily mean they aren't there.

They get misused a lot because we can't measure them, people can sort of make them whatever they want them to be without evidence, but it doesn't mean that they aren't there. It doesn't mean that a team, you know, with a history of blowing playoff leads, it doesn't mean that there's not some reason for that.

And it's kind of reassuring that with both St. Louis and San Jose this year, either there wasn't a reason or they overcame whatever was holding them back before. It, well, it makes for a fresh final matchup, and it's one of those things that makes hockey so interesting. Yeah, and there is a little bit of a, human element to it, right? Where it's like, oh, not this again. Like, we've been through this before

and it's easy to kind of get down on yourself. So it was cool to see them overcome that. Before we get out of here, I do want to quickly pick your brain on the Oilers a little bit just because I know that you hold them near and dear to your heart and you follow them closely and write about them at Oilers Nation. And I think they've got a pretty interesting summer ahead for themselves because we're eventually going to reach a boiling point with them where they can't keep following this same path. Eventually, there's, going to some something extreme is going to happen one way or another. And I guess I'm wondering where you're at with whether you think it's going to happen this summer or whether you think it's

going to come sometime later on in the future. Well, it depends on your definition of extreme, I suppose. I do think this is the year where it's entirely possible in a way that it hasn't been in years past that they move on from the, the sort of Taylor Hall core of the team, you know, Hall, Everleigh, Newgen Hopkins. This could certainly be the summer where one of those guys could be dealt and that hasn't necessarily been the case in previous season. Yeah. Well, I think how they approach the draft is going to be interesting, right? Because they have the fourth pick and there's, I'm imagining going to be a lot of pressure

on them to take a defenseman there. And I think it's, I'm not necessarily a draft expert by any means. I've started slowly doing my research here and accumulating reading, reading some good work by guys like Corey Priman and stuff. And it seems like taking a defenseman like Oli ULAV at four is a little bit of reach just based on the intriguing forward talent that's going to be available there. And I always shudder at the idea of drafting for need because, especially with the defenseman, like let's say ULAV is really good. When is he realistically going to make an impact for the

Oilers at NHL level? Two, three, four years from now? Like, who knows what the landscape's even going to look like by then? So I think it's, it's going to be interesting to see how they sort of a juggle what public perception wants them to do versus what they actually probably should do just from a value standpoint. Well, I have kind of three immediate responses to that. The first one is Peter Shirelli in his interviews is kind of, well, he hasn't even hinted. He stated outright that he's very open to trading down. So I sort of expect that if they do draft a defenseman, it'll be one of those situations

that we saw with the Islanders a few years ago where they, you know, trade down. once or twice and collect other assets or in Edmonton's case, maybe collect something in the here and now to lower that picked where it is. The second would be that you're absolutely right about the time frame. Whoever they draft here, even if it's a forward, because people forget, Leon Drysidal, Neil Yakupov, these are guys who are supposed to help right away, and Drysidal came out this year, but he really struggled down the stretch. These are guys who are not yet in the position. Like if you had traded the dry sidle pick for a, you know,

a top end second line center, that top end second line center probably would have been a better player for you this year than Drysidal was just the way he faltered down the stretch. Right. Yeah. So there is a time element. But the third thing is this perception that Edmonton needs to draft defensemen. I hear this all the time and I wonder if,

because I know it's the dominant. narrative, but you look at the team, Oscar Clefbaum was a first round pick in 2011, Darnell Nurse was a first round pick in 2013, Griffin Reinhart was the fourth overall pick in 2012. They have a pile of young defensemen. And if you look at their prospect list, of their top 10 prospects off the top of my head, probably seven of them are blue liners. They have done almost nothing but draft defensemen outside of that first overall position for the last several years. So to me, it's one of those things where of you cannot draft your way to a solution here. You have those guys matriculating in the system.

And if the solution is young players, one of those guys has to be it because you don't have time for another one to come up the line. And really what you need is an infusion of talent right now. So if you're going to use the fourth overall pick to address the defense, for the love of God, don't draft the guy, trade for him. Yeah. Well, and it was a little bit of a rough blow for them earlier this week. It was released that,

it sounds like Travis Hammondick has rescinded his his trade demand, right? And hopefully we should mention I'm not sure of the details, but I would like to think that that means that his family situation has straightened itself out and that, you know, there's positive news on that front, which is always great to hear. But I think that the Oilers just seem like such a perfect fit for a right-handed defenseman like him on a good contract that's still young and in his prime. So I imagine that that would have been a good avenue for them to have that instant, an instant influx of talent that they're going to have to look elsewhere Horneau. Travis Hammack would have been a perfect fit. He's a perfect fit. Age-wise, contract-wise,

and the role he can play on the right side, you know, he can play 25 minutes a game and provide you with quality minutes. He's a stabilizing force. He would have been a perfect fit. So it's a disappointment for the Oilers, but like you, I just hope it means that that family situation that was compelling the trade request has sorted itself out to some degree. I thought he handled what's obviously a very difficult situation with as well as anybody could. And you just hope that a guy like that, that the best happens and that it's not a pressing concern the way that it obviously was. Absolutely. Jonathan, man, it was a lot of fun. People can follow you at Jonathan Willis on Twitter. I'd recommend just doing that to keep up with all your

written work just because you write for so many different platforms and so frequently that that's probably just the easiest way because I know you tweet out all the links to your work. So I'd imagine that's the easiest way to keep up with all of your latest happenings. Absolutely. And just before I go, I really wanted to, I like coming on this podcast, so I want to get invited back. So kudos to the host here for a piece he wrote for Sportsnet about zone exits by defensemen in the first round. That's maybe the best piece of hockey writing I've seen in these playoffs. And I really wanted to congratulate you on that. Well, I appreciate that. And you've, You officially reserve the spot for yourself on this podcast anytime you want to come back on.

Excellent. That's exactly what I was aiming for. Okay. We'll talk to you, okay? Yeah, take care. The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovic and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.