The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 91: Letting Your Play Do The Talking

Episode Date: June 3, 2016

Bill West joins the show to help discuss how the Penguins won the first two games of the Stanley Cup Finals, who deserves the most credit for the way they turned their season around, and what the Sharks can do to get back into the series. Here’s a quick rundown of the topics covered: 0:30 Phil Kessel's interactions with media 5:00 Kessel's omission from Team USA 9:00 Getting players to talk about numbers 13:30 The job Mike Sullivan has done 17:00 Getting out from Tortorella's shadow 21:00 How to divvy up the credit for the success 24:00 Adjustments Sharks can make 32:50 The Ben Lovejoy and Ian Cole pairing 34:40 What to look for in the next few games Every episode of this podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher and can also be streamed right here on the website. Make sure subscribe so that you don’t miss out on any new shows as they’re released, and 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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Welcome to the Hockey Pediocast. My name is Dimitri Filipovich. And joining me is Penn's beatwriter from the Tribune Review, Bill West. Bill, what's going on, man? Oh, I'm doing all right. Enjoying a somewhat rainy afternoon here in Pittsburgh. How are you? I'm doing good, man. I'm excited to get into this series with you. I haven't really done a podcast on it yet. And we've got two games in the books now. So there's a few things to unpack and sink our teeth into. Indeed. Yeah, a lot to process so far. I think, okay, let's start here.

because everything, not just in this series, but everything in the world, I feel like revolves around Phil Kessel because he's just the best. And obviously, you know, he had a little bit of a rough start, much like the rest of the Penguins team did to the season and was catching a lot of flack for it and has unjustly received a lot of criticism in the past for playing on poor Toronto Maple Leafs teams. But it's been remarkable to watch this postseason run he's on now where he has 10 goals so far. and I think he's third in the league in playoff scoring. And I don't know, just like, I want you to tell the listeners about just the Phil Kessel experience, both watching them live every night, but also just covering him and talking to him on a routine basis.

Well, the funny thing about Phil is talking to him remains somewhat difficult. I think part of the reason that the Toronto media ended up dealing with him the way they did, treating him the way they did is because they wanted him to open up and really become someone he's not he he he's kind of this quirky shy guy who just really isn't interested in being the center of a story even though again with his skill set it's very easy to to you know write about him and make him the center of attention but that's just not the way he's wired so uh you know he kind of he he has to deal with the media now because as you acknowledge he's just been this stud in the playoffs.

So he's talking more than ever, but I still just don't know if he's enjoying it or if he's kind of scratching his head. Like, I don't know what to say. They brought him up to the podium last night with Connor Shiri. He just, he kind of gives you very basic answers as far as, you know, San Jose is a good team.

We have to play tough. We did some good things. And that's kind of the extent of his insight. So I think he is legitimately thrilled by this, opportunity and in the position he's in with the penguins. He's definitely enjoying the way, you know, really life is going for him right now. The Pittsburgh media has not been nearly as critical even when things weren't going well. And now with things being great, he's kind of the media darling and fans love him. They kind of love that, that aw shucks thing about him. Well, I understand

where certain media members might dislike, where you were just describing how he doesn't necessarily, it isn't part of his repertoire to talk to guys after the game and provide you know, heavy insight because certain, certain beat reporters do rely heavily on those player quotes for their post game articles and stuff like that. But I love it. I mean, listen, the guy just, he wants to play hockey and he wants to score goals and both of those things are his job and he does them really well. So I think that, that's, for me, that's all that really matters. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think anyone who is, I don't want to say, an intelligent journalist because that kind of belittles the people who are, who treat Phil poorly. But

journalists who understand that there are other ways to get that story and to, you know, really tell the tale of Phil Kessel, it can be done. You don't need Phil to come in and tell you about his life and, you know, give you all these intimate little details. It's just not the way he is, As you said, he's a great hockey player. And I think there's an interesting story there to be told, especially with his history in terms of the cancer they had and kind of just rocky times in Toronto. But yeah, I don't think any journalist should ever kind of penalize any player

for not being enthusiastic about talking. I covered the Pittsburgh baseball team for a while, and they had a guy that was kind of a similar situation, you know, talented guy, but really didn't like talking to the media. and some reporters took that personal and were offended by it. But again, between advanced metrics and just teammates and coaches and, you know, just little observations, there are plenty of ways to get that information without the player saying, okay, I'll tell you everything you want to know.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. There's all sorts of different personalities. There's other guys to go to if one player isn't really given you the quotes. I don't know if I should say use the words surprised because I guess we should have seen it coming, but I don't know, were you surprised by Kessel's omission from the team USA World Cup roster? It's a head scratcher. I don't know. There's so much in hockey that is kind of strange, especially decisions made by GMs and people of, you know, in positions of power that I guess I can't really be surprised by anything anymore. There's just, there are different schools

of thought. I think hockey leadership, and you still see this with, again, a pushback to analytics from some teams and the embracing of it on others. Hockey culture or leadership is kind of at a pivot point right now where, you know, a lot of guys who still are of some sort of old school thinking for lack of a better term and, you know, believe that it's,

it's all about grit and hustle and toughness and, you know, big, mean guys doing this. And then there are other guys who look and say, okay, here are our player's strengths, here are his weaknesses.

How do we put together? the, you know, the lineup that best kind of compliments itself or that where every piece, you know, helps make the whole that much better. So, you know, the U.S. team loading up on, on kind of tough guys and emitting someone like Kessel, it's a head scratcher, but again, I guess there's a certain school thought that says that's the way you do it. Yeah, but it's like there's something to be said for learning from past history and I guess if you're really you know taking this exercise seriously and trying to feel the best team that can they can win the world cup um you'd look back to what happened in sochi where uh when they went up against team Canada just they their attempts to even

score a goal were so feeble that you know you think that having as many guys as phil kessel would be uh would be good for your efforts to potentially scoring with some of the other best teams in this tournament but I guess they're attacking it from a different angle, as you said. Yeah, hey, I agree with you. A guy with Phil shot, you would think there would be a use for that somewhere in the mix. But I don't know. From what I read, the comments from Dean Lombardi, building a roster they think can beat Team Canada.

So apparently they're seeing something that leads them to believe that Team Canada is vulnerable in the tough guy category. So I don't know. Like I said, it's a strange, strange situation, but it seems that it happens all too often these days in terms of NHLGM and related kind of leadership decisions. Yeah. Yeah, it definitely does. Hey, so you're just to pivot on the topic of talking to players, you do a great job. And I'm not sucking up to you right now just because you came on a PDO cast, but I think you do a really commendable job of integrating different forms of analysis and using numbers.

to help guide your stories and provide further insight rather than just regurgitating quotes and all that jazz like some other guys do. So I think I've always wondered just in terms of how players deal with this stuff with quote-unquote analytics because I've always had this running theory that plenty of them aren't necessarily as sort of meat-headed and jockish as they may put on for their appearance, just in terms of their grasp of these concepts and their appreciation for the important. of stuff like puck possession because it is sort of an intuitive thing that's ingrained in hockey from an early age. But I think it's whether it's the poor terminology and lingo and

the names that we have for some of these stats or just maybe this pervasive idea where it's kind of considered nerdy and not necessarily very cool to be talking about it. So they just, you know, are avoiding kind of being mocked and having their reps tarnished around the locker room. Like, I don't know. Like, do you gather from discussing with certain players that they do have an appreciation for this stuff? Or is it really where it's like they actually believe the whole, you just have to play the game the right way sort of mentality? Well, I've tried, well, first of all, I should say,

thank you for complimenting the coverage. It's always appreciated. I think you can't suck up to me there because you still have more followers on Twitter and a bigger reach. I haven't been on any of the Canadian broadcast stuff yet, so you're still the man in charge here. But anyway, thank you. Yeah, in terms of talking,

analytics with players. I've tried to do it a couple times with different guys. They know about it and I think they respect some of the concepts but they definitely don't want to go full nerd

in public view. I think they, there's still a skepticism for what it all really means. I found guys like Nick Benino he's very good relative to teammates. Nick is very good at, you know, being willing to discuss it.

And he, he impresses me because there were points in the season where I would ask him about a particular performance and he would bring up scoring chances that night that, you know, they were a plus six in scoring chances as a line. So he, I asked him just flat out one time. So where do you get some of these numbers from? Are you going on websites? And, you know, the team tracks it internally, of course. So they're kind of getting their own, you know, proprietary reads on things. But clearly Benino gives some thought to. to things like scoring chance and shot differentials and things like that.

Yeah, where you lose them is if you do start using, you know, the coursey and Fenwick and anything that really suggests that you're, you're clearly not a hockey guy. You're one of those nerd types that just... Yeah. You wouldn't want to be one of those guys.

Exactly. Yeah, they get very wary if they think that you're not, again, a quote unquote hockey guy. You're some sort of outsider. So the, the, trick or the way I found to approach the subject without scaring them off is like I said, you talk about the idea of puck possession or zone time or, you know, just getting pucks in the net as opposed to having things blocked. And they understand what the number or what the numbers and the metrics represent. They just, yeah, they don't want to be quantified.

Because I think the scariest thing or one of the scariest things that you can do to a player is to try to simplify what they do into a series of numbers. And again, I'm not opposed to that. I understand that the numbers simply represent events on the ice, but the players always have to tell themselves that there's more to it. And there is. I mean, like any sports, hockey is incredibly complicated, and it's not as simple as saying, you know, that's a shot attempt.

So, you know, good job, you, bad job, other team. So that's kind of the balance that you walk. You don't come right up and say, hey, you know, you're, you were a 67% coursey four player tonight. You know, great job. But you can say, you know, the puck was in. The other teams end a lot when you were out on the ice, you know, to what do you attribute that to?

Yeah, once you start adjusting for zones and a rating per 60 stats, they'll, you'll probably lose them. Yeah, I mean, even though, I mean, again, even something like that is funny. The rate stats, uh, I think you could get to that. I haven't brought it up too much. Um, but, you know, zone adjustment, guys, guys are aware when they start, in the defensive zone a lot more than others or in the offensive zone.

I've talked to Matt Collin and Tom Kunhackle and Eric Farrer about that a lot because, I mean, they get almost all of the Penguins' defensive zone starts. It's kind of their thing. So, you know, you can talk to those guys about, hey, what do you feel you're trying to accomplish as opposed to, again, a line like, you know, Malkins,

which gets really heavy offensive zone start. Yeah. And I mean, all of this stuff is, as I said, intuitive, right? It's like you want to have the puck more than the other team. team and certain guys are used in different ways based on their role and how their coach likes to spread out the wealth and all of this stuff. So it's not like you're, you know, redefining the game or breaking any new ground. It just, you've got to find a way to spin it in a way that they're going to feel comfortable talking about it so that it does, you know,

so it's not perceived as they are being nerdy and very uncool. Yeah, you have to, you have to speak their language. You can't expect them to speakers. That's, that's really what it does boil down to. So I wanted to talk to you about Mike Sullivan because speaking of various different languages, I think that what I really enjoyed is, aside from obviously all the winning that they've done, he's taken over as just some of the quotes I've seen from him where it seems like he really is a pretty kind of thoughtful, innovative guy who is taking all of this stuff into account and isn't, while he might not necessarily be, you know, fully numbers, numbers heavy and just using that solely to guide his opinions. he is at least kind of keeping, keeping the door open to it and considering it,

which I think is a big step up from some of the other coaches we see around the league. Yeah, I think he absolutely looks at the numbers and keeps them in mind. You know, he's not a guy who, again, go back to the point we were discussing earlier. You know, it's all about the grit and, you know, the intangibles. He is absolutely intrigued in being able to measure and, again, compare to some extent what players are doing. He's never come out and said, you know, X, Y, Z numbers, why I play this guy or why I'm using this line the most. He always keeps at a very conceptual level, which is really, it's helped me in terms of my coverage. Because when I first started on the beat, which was the middle of the season, actually, three days before Mike Sullivan took over.

You know, I didn't know how to talk to the players about the advanced metrics. I was very interested in them, but I had dealt with baseball. and in baseball, there's a lot more knowledge and familiarity with some of the advanced numbers there. But again, in hockey, it's for Bowden, you don't go there. So hearing the way Mike talks about, again, the concepts that you can then kind of apply to these advanced metrics, it helped me. He is an incredibly smart coach in terms of studying psychology and that side of things because there certainly is an element of that.

It's, you know, they're not just robots. You don't just send them out there and tell them. them to execute your commands. But you also, you know, very sharp about, you know, how to manage the bench and, you know, being open to different pairings in this whole lineup. They're the way the penguins were constructed in terms of really investing in this speed type of game and this pace game and being willing to sacrifice size to some extent, even though, again, there's a lot of people in the league who believe you need to have

a bunch of six-foot-three defensemen and, you know, hardy forwards and guys that can take a hit for the playoffs. And he's insisted all along as has the general manager that if we simply play fast enough, the other team can't catch us. They aren't going to be able to get those big hits and trap us and, you know, our own end and things like that. So yeah, Mike, it's been, you know, I don't have a whole lot to compare to because he's the only coach I've really ever covered. but it's it's very refreshing to see how thoughtful he can be about the different way you can play hockey well i think it serves as a good reminder just in general that uh sometimes you need to um not just lump everyone that works under one staff together because i remember being pretty skeptical when they

hired him just because the the lasting image i had in my mind was when he was serving as an assistant under john tortorella here in mancouver and you just when you know when you have a head coach and his assistant coaches, it just seems like you sort of lump all those guys into one. And just if the head coach believes a certain thing and acts a certain way, you just assume automatically that the assistant coaches kind of follow the same thought process in psychology. But he's been just dramatically different and pleasantly surprising, I think. Yeah, when he was first hired, there was probably a solid two week to three week span where there were just constant questions about his relationship with Torterella and how much he learned

from Tortorella and, you know, essentially was he a Tortorella disciple. And, you know, while he always kind of acknowledged that, yes, they were together for a long time and they have a friendship, he at first was gradually, but then eventually made it pretty clear they're different coaches. You know, they went about things differently. It sounded like Mike always kind of served as the kind of stoic, almost cold and calculated compliment to Torterly. Torterella and the way Tortorella does things, which is, of course, not stoic at all.

So, yeah, I think they got lumped together, but Mike never really, he never was trying to be a tortarella. He has no interest in going about things that way. He respects the way Tortorella does his business, but, you know, Coach Sullivan, it's, he has a very, very different personality. And yeah, that's become incredibly clear over the past four months. Yeah, that's not a bad idea. You never really want to go full tortarella. I think that, you know, it is interesting because Sullivan's obviously not necessarily like a young up-and-coming guy that's just cutting his teeth at the NHL level now in the sense that he's been around the block for a while now. But it does feed into this idea that I've been mulling over about how it'd be cool if we saw more teams start routinely going to the HL well.

and getting these guys who have familiarity with their younger players and keeping it in house as opposed to how we see all this sort of all these retreads that are being passed around the league who we know aren't really good or who we know the game has passed them by. So I think, I don't know, I think the success of a guy like Sullivan after he came up from the AHA and worked with a lot of these guys is something smart teams around the league are going to look at and try to implement in their own system.

Yeah, I mean, you see what, you know, Cooper is done with Tampa Bay, kind of a similar approach. And John Hines and New Jersey seems to be off to a good start relative to the talent they had this year. I think because you're seeing the talent in the league trend, I don't want to say trend younger because I suppose it's not really true. Even the Penguins, a lot of these quote unquote young guys they have are, they're college players. They're 22, 23 years old.

But yeah, yeah, you probably, it would be wise to have a coach who, is capable of connecting with all the players. Your young call-ups, your stars, and everyone between you don't want a coach that is just paying lip service to the stars or who secretly has an affinity for the Dan Girardis and Mark Stalls of the world. And you need a coach who is truly able to connect

and communicate with your best to your, again, I don't want to say worst, but the guy who's ego was most fragile. It's such a team game now. I think you're seeing that they're, even in the cup final right now, it's clear that Penguins' depth,

and part of that is the good fortune they've had with just cap space and roster moves. But any good team is going to drive as deep as possible right now, and you want a coach that is able to connect with all of that depth, not just the top line or the top bottom six four to the top, bottom six four to the top six fours it's just you you need to have someone who kind of is able to spin all those plates at once yeah for sure i saw somewhere i think uh someone tweeted out that the penguins have won 33 of their past 45 games or something like that which is remarkable and

and it's it's such a 180 from what they look like early in the year so i guess what what intrigues me is sort of uh this delineation or how we're gonna uh give credit how much of it goes to jim rutherford for seeing the writing on the wall and pulling the trigger on these moves and making some of these trades and calling these guys up and how much of it is really Mike Sullivan coming in and being like, we need more of these HL guys to come up and play bigger roles. Like, is it just sort of a team effort and everyone really deserves a fair amount of the credit, or do you think it goes more one way than the other? That is one of the more discussed topics I'd say among the hockey writers in Pittsburgh is,

yeah, at the end of the season, how will, you know, what will the end of the season story say? What will the narrative be? Was this Jim Rutherford's, you know, greatest achievement?

Was this Mike Sullivan? This is, you know, how much of this is on Crosby and La Tang and the production they had in the second half. I think it's mostly serendipity. You know, everyone that you just mentioned did some really good things.

You know, Jim Rutherford made some pretty bad moves in the past, you know, last season and, you know, certainly had some egg on his face and was not particularly, you know, well liked in Pittsburgh. But, you know, getting the Trevor Daly trade was an eye-opener, to say the least. I'm still, I think everyone's still a little perplexed as to how that happened or why that happened. Apparently Chicago just really wanted to clear some cap space and didn't see a need for Trevor Daly.

So, yeah, that trade. And then, again, the Hagel and Perron thing seemed to work out for both teams. And Justin Schultz was just a really, you know, smart move in terms of giving away very little and getting a guy who has proven to be pretty useful, at least as a bottom-payer defenseman. And the call-ups, there's always been some question. I still don't know if there's been a clear answer why some of the call-ups weren't with the team up to that point, you know, whether Mike Johnston simply didn't trust these guys as much as Sullivan did or if it was the GM that was kind of interfering or intervening. But I think,

Like I said, it's mostly serendipity. If the injuries don't happen to Mark Andre Fleury, then you don't really see Matt Murray. If Beau Bennett doesn't hurt his shoulder, Mike Sullivan's debut, Conner Shearie doesn't get the call-up that next day. Brian Russ, you know, Scott Wilson there. Again, almost all the baby pens were first called up because one of the forwards was injured for some stretch of time. And these call-ups ended up just being so productive that it became pretty tough. for the penguins to say, well, we got to send you back. We don't want you anymore.

Right. So they've found a way to make it work. They got rid of Sergei Plotnikoff and Perron and Pascal DePui. You know, there's another example of a kind of just strange twist and, you know, turn of events. So it's, uh, it's mostly just going to, I think, be remembered as, wow, everything fell in the place. Yeah, everything worked out. Yeah. Well, okay.

So they're obviously up to nothing now on the sharks. And while, you know, people are. can generally sometimes overreact on the internet and just call a series this prematurely. I think that there's a lot left to go. And it's fascinating to see how the next couple of games will unfold. And one of the things that I'll be looking for is how the sharks decide or how Pete DeBurr himself decides to free up Thornton and Pavelski. Because while it looks like Sullivan sort of spread out the wealth in terms of defending those guys and didn't necessarily hard match while he had the opportunity to it. home, he definitely fed them a healthy dose of Latang and Dumolin.

And as good of a job as some of these other guys have done stepping up and holding the fort, I think that that blue line looks very suspect beyond that top pairing. And if DeBora can free up Thornton and Pavelsky for some easier opportunities at home, it could all of a sudden really kind of change the complexion of the series. Yeah, certainly. the ability to have last change, it's always an interesting thing over the course of a series because you do see the little chess matches go on.

So that will be one of the big questions here in the next couple days for DeBoer in particular is, yeah, how do you get your top line to dominate matchups? I'm sure what Mike Sullivan will say to the degree that Sullivan doesn't really like discussing particular matchups, of course, he always says that we trust any forward line against any of their lines and we trust our D-pair. and blah, blah, blah.

It's always about trusting everyone. But I think he's going to keep the Duman Lutang out there against the Pavellski and Thornton combo just because, as you said, that's what you got to do. It's a lockdown pair. But he'll also, I would suspect, just lean heavily on either Crosby's line or Collins line. And really make it that the Thornton-Povowski combo

has to beat five players instead of just two. It's the big, one of the big talking points for Mike Sullivan, and this has been the case since he took over, you know, is always having players on the right side of the puck. He talks about it constantly and, you know, this 200-foot game, make the opponent go through all five of your guys

as opposed to three or two. It's just the idea that our defensemen are not solely responsible for stopping another teams forward. If we just dump the puck deep and, you know, stay on the right side of it, then you're better off. I guess it's kind of the simplest way to put it. So, yeah, I think more so than looking for creative matchups, it's just really going to be that much more important for the penguins when they don't

have as much flexibility in their change options to, you know, again, for lack of a better term, play the right way. That's what Sullivan says all the time. Well, it's interesting that you mentioned the Cullen line and the Crosby line in terms of who's going to match up against Thornton because I did, I read, I think it was your pre-game two notes where you were mentioning that Benino's line actually saw most of the, most of the Thornton duty in game one. And I really liked Sullivan's thought process and describing why that was in the sense that he was saying that, you know, it's generally

convention that you put your checking guys, your sort of depth players against other teams best and just try to limit the damage that they're going to inflict upon you. But Sullivan sort of spun it back the other way and mentioned that another way to defend is by making the other team's top players actually play on their own zone a little bit and kind of giving them some of their own medicine. So I thought that was a pretty cool and underutilized approach that we see. Yeah, it's called the Eric Carlson philosophy or the Eric Carlson ethos because I think, of course, maybe any player out there, Carlson most splits the, is he playing offense or is he playing defense, you know, attitude out there.

But yeah, I think it was an interesting thought. I didn't necessarily agree with it. And I think in game two, that became clear. I haven't looked at the exact head-to-head matchups on war on ice because it was 130 when I left the arena last night. But I know the Benino line didn't do very well from a possession standpoint. So if they tried to go back to that, and I know that the Benino line was out there for at least some portion of time

against the Thornton-Povilski line, then it didn't work out in the process. Penguins favor in game two and they still won. But I think there's a reason that Crosby's line has handled the toughest defensive matchups all, most of the season anyway. And the Cullen line has always kind of been there to, you know, take away some of those minutes and can just be defensively responsible. So as much as I think Sullivan is willing to experiment and occasionally try to branch out

what he does with the Benino line, that combo or that trio is still probably. probably best served just abusing whatever the other team's, you know, third line or second line is. And you're seeing it in the series. I think the big separator right now is, you know, the Tierney line for San Jose is just getting owned by whoever they're up against. They just, it has not gone well for Chris Tierney and his wingers. Because he's either been out there against Benino or he's out there against Crosby in game one. It's just you're seeing the forward depth. and every playoff opponent for the penguin so far has talked about this.

It is almost impossible to have the depth to match what the penguins are doing in terms of their three-line things. To go back to the initial point you brought about Phil Kessel, as long as he's on his own line and especially again with a center like Benino who is more than happy to let Phil make all the plays, then you're essentially stuck with, you know, how many times can you get your lockdown defensive pair out there? How many times can you use your more reliable, you know, forward lines?

So it's that the onus is still on DeVore and the sharks to really figure out how to win the matchup game just because it seems, at least from what we've seen through two games, they have fewer options. I guess you're eventually just going to have to play the Thornton line like 30 minutes a game. I don't know. Yeah, that would definitely be one potential remedy for them. Well, listen, it sounds incredibly kind of oversimplistic to put it. this way, but it really is the case in these playoff series where it's going to be who can sort of limit the exposure to their bottom end player is the best, and who can take advantage of other teams' weak links. And with this Penguins team, it is just remarkably difficult

to match up with them and defend them, because eventually Pete DeBoer is going to have to play that Roman Polack, Brennan-Dillan pairing against one line that can score goals very easily. and all of a sudden, like we saw that in game two, where Polack makes that brutal turnover in his own zone, and then it's flopping around on the ice like a fish, and Kessel winds up scoring the first goal of the game. And there's not much the sharks can do about that because no team necessarily has 18 guys

they can just roll without any worry, but the penguins have many fewer of those kind of glaring holes than other teams generally do. Yeah, their weekend seems to be less weak than most. again, it's not an impossible puzzle to solve. I think the Benino line and the Malkin line, if you can get them stuck in their defensive zone, then there's some vulnerabilities there

because I don't think either of those forward lines are particularly strong when they have to block shots and do things like that. So the trick is get a really extended possession, and then maybe you, you know, once you have the puck pin deep in their end, you make some, you know, changes and you get your best offensive guys out there. but the reason the penguins tried so hard to go out and get these puck moving defensemen

is so that of course they don't get pinned deep they are able to go back and retrieve pucks and move it out of their zone before any team can really set up the forecheck or establish it in a cycle game so uh i think there there is a recipe um you know Washington probably came as close as anyone to executing that well or i mean Tampa did the alternate strategy which is just again transition game and really kill you with kind of the counterpunch stuff. I don't know if San Jose has the roster to do that. I think San Jose is more likely to kind of do what Washington did.

So there is a bit of a blueprint, but again, you look at the results, and neither team, despite having some success, Washington or Tampa Bay was able to get it done for a whole series. Well, I don't want to make it seem like this penguin's blue line is necessarily impenetrable. Like you look past that Latang and Dumolin pairing. and while Cole and Schultz have actually been pretty good in this series so far, like I know the Lovejoy Mata pairing hasn't necessarily worked out that great. And of course, we can't forget the, like, explain to me the rationale behind the Lovejoy-Cole pairing. Was it just like purely out of necessity early in the postseason?

Because that was quite possibly one of the worst defensive pairings, I think I've ever watched. Yeah, I have no idea. I asked about that a couple times. It still, to this day, doesn't make sense to me. I think it was Mike Sullivan overthinking things a little bit. His explanation was they wanted defensive defensemen that he actually used that term, which I don't think he'd use it at all during a regular season, and they wanted penalty killers.

So the penalty killer logic, I guess, kind of made sense because they were afraid of the Capp's power play and wanted to make sure they had as many penalty killers as possible. So again, I don't think it's a really. reason to use those two as a pair and five on five play, but it was just strange. I'm with you. It seemed like a deviation from everything the penguins did

up to that point to, you know, become the team that they are now. So, uh, I, I certainly for one, was glad to see it go because again, it was just like, it was brutal. It just didn't make sense. It made bad hockey that, you know, it was suddenly two defensemen that just wanted the block shots and dump the puck out of their own end and, you know,

kind of stifled everything. else the penguins try to do when those two were out there. So they have their purpose. Each of them, you know, they work as complementary pieces when they have a good puck mover like a Justin Schultz or, you know, Dumolin. Lovejoy's been with everyone

at this point. Now he's with Holy Mata. But yeah, they have their purpose. You just can't put them together. That is not the way to do it. Yeah. Yeah, I'm excited to see how these next couple of games in San Josego, I think that you're mentioning that blueprint that

the capitals laid out and we discussed how DeBoer is going to kind of free up that Thorin Pavelsky combo and I think another interesting component of this is the sharks have only had three power play opportunities through these first two games and it's quite possible that we see in one of these home games that they get a couple more and convert on those and all of a sudden they're right back in this series so I would caution people from you know just just handing the Stanley Cup over to the penguins now through two games

because I think there's still plenty of really good hockey to be played Yeah, absolutely. You know, it is, it's a, I guess you can look at it two different ways. On the one hand, you know, the numbers say that I think, however many times it's happened, 40 some now, maybe it's up to 50 times that the team has gone ahead, 2-0 in the Stanley Cup final. They've won the series 90% of the time or 88 is somewhere around there. So, again, the odds of those sharks come back aren't great right now.

But, yeah, there's, you know, not impossible. Nothing is inconceivable. The shark's power play is still scary as hell. So the penguins are wise to stay out of the box and not get into, especially if the sharks start getting more, I guess, irritating or agitating, whatever word you want to use. They probably haven't taken enough advantage of trying to be just frustrating for the penguins. I think part of it is there's not a lot of history between the two teams.

So maybe they just don't have the little. you know, the little jabs and little, you know, whatever it is, things that you say to guys to set them off. Certainly, the caps and the Rangers even, I think we're a little more attuned to that. So if the sharks think they can get, you know, Chris LaTang or a Sydney Crosby or an Evgeny Malkin off their game that way a little bit, maybe worth a try. I don't know. But, yeah, I think it's ultimately, it's going to be about the sharks, finding way to establish long possessions in the offensive end and, you know, getting, again, Thornton, Provowski, Logan Kuthor, whoever, out there where they're not expending all their energy, you know, retrieving pucks and starting the breakout again. Instead, they're committing

that energy and that effort to, you know, offensive zone, you know, possession. Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing how they do that. Bill, thanks for taking the time to come on the PDO cast in chat, man. I think it was a lot of fun. And I've looked, look, forward to having you on the show for a while now, so it was good to finally have this chat. Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity, and I'm happy to come on anytime you want to talk. Absolutely, man. We'll talk soon. Before you go, where can people find you on Twitter and read your work? We need to make sure they do that. Yeah, my bosses would not be happy with me if I didn't plug it. My Twitter handle, account, whatever we call it these days, is B-West underscore

Trib, that's B for Bill West, like the direction underscore star IB. So, check out all my, all my musings there, I guess. Yep, I definitely recommend it. And, yeah, well, I'm sure we'll, we'll chat soon, maybe later on in the series when it's 2-2, and all of a sudden we have, we spend 40 minutes talking about how the penguins are going to make adjustments to come back into it. Yeah, we suddenly question why they're using Justin Schultz so much when he's, you know, being

exposed for not really doing much in his own defensive end. absolutely. All right, man. Talk soon. All right, thanks, Dimitri. The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at SoundCloud.com slash hockeypediocast.