The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 92: Puke It Like Peckham

Episode Date: June 8, 2016

Jeff Marek joins the show to discuss his takeaways from the recent Draft Combine, and whether the NHL robot factory will eventually get its hands on Patrik Laine. We also get into some draft theory with regards to taking chances on higher upside players, and why the Sharks haven't been able to keep up with the Penguins. Here’s a quick rundown of the topics covered: 0:25 Prep work for a typical podcast 3:55 The Theo Peckham Story 7:12 Not putting too much stock into the Combine 13:15 Patrik Laine not being turned into an NHL robot 21:30 Drafting smaller, higher skill players 26:00 NHL teams hiring their AHL coaches 30:28 San Jose's inability to adapt to Pittsburgh's speed 35:32 The poor ice surface in June 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 back by popular demand. Oh, please. Eric, Jeff, what's going on? Aren't you sick of me yet? I mean, I'm sick of me, but I always have to be around me. Aren't you sick of me yet? I just saw on like two seconds ago talking about the Memorial Cup.

No, you're a hit on the show. You definitely drive the most traffic in terms of me finding, like, kind of quotes of stuff we've set on this podcast on random message boards and people discussing things we chatted about on here. I didn't even know people were listening. I thought we were just kind of having a private conversation. You're confusing me with MJ. Do you think are you called Mike? This is Jeff, by the way. Dimitri. You've been drinking again. You've been drinking again, Dimitri.

Okay, I guess we're already here. We may as well keep going. All right, what the hell? Yeah. You know, by the way, by the way, I do want to point out, your pre-show preamble, I don't know if you do this to all of your guests on the podcast, but your pre-show preamble to me may be the finest. We'll talk about Combine, but really, you know what, let's just bounce around and talk about stuff. Okay, ready to go? Three, two, one. Well, you know, I actually, I provide a lot more structured to the other guests,

but I know that I can always count on you to pick up the slack and really just kind of drive the conversation. I'm always curious about the nature of structure of podcasts because, you know, with MBSW, once in a time when we first started it, we talked to each other for like 20 minutes every morning, want to do this, and right now, it's like Greg and I barely call each other, you know, we barely speak, we'll exchange text. There's an old married couple. You just come to come into bed and turn around and don't even face each other. Yeah. It barely stared at each other over newspapers and coffee in the morning. And, you know, in radio, in traditional and traditional media, I mean, it's very structured.

We've got to get to this topic and this where your producer wants and he puts a story in front of you. And you got to hit break here for traffic. You need to break from the news update and the sports. And it's very structured. But I think every podcast is a little bit different. Do you find, here I go hosting again, do you find that depending on the guests that you have here, some you can just sort of, hey, man, we're going to this one with shorts and flops and hanging out, bro. And others, you have to really focus on, okay, here.

Here's what we're going to talk about. This is the parameters, and we're going to stay within this little box. I think you sort of have to play it by ear and know the person you're having on, because there's certain people that I've never chatted with before, really, other than maybe over Twitter, DMs or something like that. And you get them on here and you don't really have any sort of rapport. So you want to avoid those sequences where you, like, ask them a question and they talk for a few minutes, and then they just kind of abruptly stop talking and you don't really know where you're going next. and that never makes for good listening material. So at least try to have like some sort of a little kind of outline or list of stuff just in case like, you know, like break in case of emergency, just in case we need to move on to something new.

You know who the best? Because it's true. Once you work with a person for long enough, like I'm sure you found this when you work, you know, with Travis for as long as you did, you can find out when a person is winding down their sentence so you know when to pick up. Kind of like Miller and Fox do with the LA Kings games. Like you can always like, Jim Fox gives you like this really audits. obvious verbal cue that he's about to stop.

He has this little trail up right at the end. He'll pause and then his last thought will be really fast and he'll end it with a trail up and Miller slides right in. It's like one of the most distinct sort of I'm about to stop here moments. And I guess you just get that from working with people for a long time. But it is true. Once you work with someone for the first time, I find the hardest thing is how to take verbal cues from them to know when they're going to stop talking.

Like there. I'm like there. Exactly. Just like that. All right, let's start with the combine because you were covering it for Sportsnet. And I know you have some thoughts on it. And people love story time with Uncle Jeff. And I feel like the Combin's amazing good stories.

Oh, yes. You want the Theo Peckham story, don't you? I do, yes. For those that didn't catch it on the broadcast, I feel like you should share it here. It's one of my favorites. Let me just do a quick little search here. I want to say, Theo. What are you looking for about him?

And it's where he was drafted. He went to like the third round. It was third round. Okay. Because, okay, so Theo Peckham was a defenseman from Richmond Hill. Still is, I suspect. Still from Richmond Hill, but no longer in the NHL. Played with the Owen Sound attack.

And in his draft here, this would have been two, oh, hang on. 206. So 206 Combine. So Peckham's a big guy. Like at that point, he's like 6-2, 220 pounds or something like that. And he gets on the bike. And he wasn't scheduled. He was supposed to be like a late pick in that year's draft if my memory serves me correct.

And hops on the bike. And the bike is the one exercise that all the guys fear. We've all seen that, you know, the V-O-2 max when you're on the bike. It's just, it's death, it's torture. The guys hate it. You're scared of it. There are people screaming at you to continue to do it. You start burning.

And inevitably, a lot of the kids will vomit, either when they're done or even before they're finished. So Peckham gets on there. big dude and starts working it, works it really hard, and he's really pounding it, says, Draftor Man, you've got to show good to the scouts. And he gets off and right away, right to the garbage can and loses it, just like massive barf, okay? All the scouts, all of a sudden, the spines go straight,

and they get out their notebooks. Oh, yeah, Theo Peckamone, sound hard work. Like, right away, it reinforced to them how hard this guy works and how much of a, you know, tireless, even to the point of physical exhaustion, into the point of making himself sick. And he ended up going to the third round. He ended up bumping up his draft stock significantly.

And then the next year at the car, a lot of the agents that I talked to, the name Theo Peckham, kept coming up because they kept saying, like, we told all of our clients, do what Theo did, no matter what happened on that bike, even if you don't have to throw up, run to the garbage, and try to make yourself vomit,

to demonstrate to everybody there, to all the scouts, to all the teams, that you work that hard, you know, to the point where you'll compromise, you'll compromise your own health and you'll work so hard to you barf. So there is a, there was this year, a big curtain right beside the bikes, okay? And it's closed off so no one can see. And yes, that's the area where now the kids go barf after they're done on the bikes. So no one has to actually watch them do it in front of everybody. There is a very private. And I would like personally I would like to name that

the Theo Peckham zone yeah the Peckham zone that would be fantastic if they had like if they had like a banner or something in honor of Theo Peckham this is the reason why we have this because now every kid feels as if they're obliged to barf to demonstrate to all these scouts

no correlation to hockey to demonstrate to all these scouts that they will work so hard that they'll make themselves vomit something please please NHL do something with Theo Peckham in the Curtin Doff area now Yes. Well, I don't know. How do you feel about the combine in general just as a thing that exists? It's inspired very much so by the NFL Combine. We all get that. We all understand that.

The NFL Combine, like there are very specific things, look at the 40, for example, there are very specific things you do at the NFL Combine that directly translate to your sports. Especially if you're like a wide receiver or something. Totally, totally. So if you were like a new scout or GM or something like that in the, in the NFL and you didn't know any of the prospects. Okay, let's say you like wiped your brain clean, okay, of all the prospects, who they were, their backstory, all of it, and came to the combine, took that information away and had to make a selection.

You could still reasonably, I would imagine, make some reasonably decent selections based on some of the evidence you saw at the combine. Right. Because what happens in there directly translates to what happens while you're playing football. Hockey's not the same way. You know, we had, you know, countless players. I mean, we had Matt Nicol with a strength and conditioning coach founder of Bio Steel. I mean, we all know, I mean, he works with, you know, elite level client.

He works with Tyler Segan. He works with Mike Camilleri. Like, he works with high-end guys at his gym in downtown Toronto. And, you know, he said, we asked about some of the specific exercises the players were doing. And he said, yeah, right away, you know, we don't do this in the gym. We don't do that in the gym. And, you know, the one obvious one is bench press. And we had Oli O'Levi on, who would none of the one of the nice guys did the combine at all.

It's another category of discussion potentially on this podcast. Interesting. But, you know, Oli O'Levy said, yeah, you know, I never do bench press. It doesn't translate at all to hockey. Right. And, you know, even at the gym that I work at it, which is all hockey kids. Like, it's kids that play in the OJL, the OHL, the HL, the HL, some NHL guys in there as well. like there's no, they don't do bench press.

You know, they don't do curls. They don't do things like that. They do things that are much more sports specific. So there are some areas of the combine as well that you look at and you say, okay, why are they doing bench press? Why are you putting a couple of plates on there? Like what type of information are you going to glean? But then Matt Nicol told me something interesting that I'd never considered before.

He said when he was with the Maple Leafs, what he would use it for as a strength and conditioning coach is he would go and watch all the kids and see how their body moves and check out their results. He said the best information he could glean from the combine is where an athlete is predisposed to have an injury. And you can tell, by the way, they work out on some of the various areas. You can tell if, okay, this ankle is a little bit compromised. His knee is a little bit compromised.

His shoulder is going to give him a hard time somewhere down the road. So I think as far as information gathering, one, it's a chance for all the teams to meet the players and two more so than any else is probably a place to have a look at where an athlete may be predisposed to have an injury but you know what the biggest one is to meet you to be totally honest with you about what the combine is this is no disrespect to all the all the people and trainers that run the combine and danny mart for putting it together no disrespect to them at all but the way i look at the combine it's marketing for the draft yeah meet the prospects here they are in a different environment this is what austin matthews looks like not you know without a

advisor in front of his face. This is what Linae looks like. This is what Poliaravi looks like. This is what Kachuk looks like. This is what Clayton Keller looks like. This is what Mikhail Surgachev looks like. Jake Bean, take your pick. To me, it's more than anything else. It's marketing for the draft. So we're a couple of weeks out and all of a sudden

we're getting to talk to the prospect. So it's not just Coach's Corner that presents five of the more high-end guys in the first intermission of game three. Yeah. Well, I think all of that, I'm perfectly cool with all that. Obviously, where I take issue with it is when you start putting too much stock into the results and then you get the like how ridiculous does all

the sam bennett pull-up stuff look now and he's scoring nearly 20 goals as a teenager at the nchl level and he's in the low he looks like he's going to be a star like it just like i can't believe that people were actually that was a legitimate talking point uh it was a talking point and but the the biggest part of that talking point was is that he had a shoulder injury you were trying to do a pull up with a shoulder injury i assure you it's it's it's very it's not it's not very comfortable um you Listen, man, you look at Gary Roberts, you know, who couldn't even do a chin up when he was, when he was drafted. And now, you know, Gary Roberts is one of the beasts of the business. So, I'm with you.

I don't put a ton of stock into the results. Like, you know, last year, Jack I called Blue Conner McDavid away. Yeah. You know what that affected? Nothing. Right. Connick David was going number one. Yeah.

And even if someone has a poor showing at the combine, like, first of all, maybe for your bottom end guys, it may mean something. You may be able to glean something as far as, you know, work ethic. and how they take care of themselves, et cetera. Right. But for a high-end guy, what can you possibly gain? Like if you're Austin Matthews, Patrick Lennie, like, what can you gain by going to this thing? I would argue nothing.

Yeah. Nothing can be gaining. And you know what? A lot of it, too, is, you know, a lot of the CHL kids, you know, play longer seasons. And I was to focus on NCAA and CHL. The CHL guys have a longer season. The U.S. players spend more time in the gym.

So they're already more predisposed to having great results of the combine more so than the junior kids. I mean, you look at the London Knights. And I know there's a lot of eyebrows raised that nobody took part in any of the events. You know, you levy didn't, Cliff Poo, your boy didn't, Max Jones, like all that, Matthew Kuchuk. They, Tyler Parsons, you know, they just finished playing hockey, winning the Memorial Cup. And they shut them down. And they were there for interviews and they're there for marketing, but they didn't do anything. But, you know, if you're a high-end guy, is there any point to do it?

doing this? Like, is there really anything to gain other than it's another opportunity to market yourself? Right. To put yourself out there. You know, how about you know? Well, I mean, has anyone else, has anyone put themselves out there as much as Patrick Lainet has the past few weeks? It's been glorious, hasn't it? I mean, part of it, part of it too is because everyone's chasing them now. Right. You know, like everybody wants, everyone's waiting for the next great Patrick Linae quote. And, and you try to figure, okay, so he's going to Winnipeg. Is he going to be Tamus Salani, the much beloved guy, teammates love him, or is he going to be the next track suit in the shower? We don't know, you know, because he's had, he's had that, but he's had,

he's had feuds with players on his team, he's feuded with coaches, like, the past for Patrick Lainey, like individually, fantastic. As far as team concept, there have been some issues before. He's up front and center about, you know, what happened last year at the Ivan Alenka, for example, he kicked off the team. Like, he's had run-ins with players and coach as before, very public in Finland. But, and I saw you tweet about this, you just hope that the game doesn't pound that personality out of them. Because as we've all seen, it does have a way of pounding itself out of a player.

I just hope it doesn't end up as a tracksuit shower guy. I think it most likely will. The NHL is just, it's an unforgiving machine at this point. And it just like, it takes control of all these guys. But then they dare show any sort of personality and just like, and just automatically someone's going to get, you know, offended by something they say or something they do and it's going to get spun out of control. And I don't know, the thing that I take issue with is like, okay, so he's had, he's butt heads with people like on a team level, right? Like,

and then we just saw this with Jared McCann when he got shipped out of Vancouver and all of a sudden this smear campaign came out about how he was difficult to deal with and, you know, he was a bit cocky and all this stuff. And it's like, what 18, 19 year olds do you guys? know that are like fully formed mature adults like I I remember myself when I was 18 19 years old like I was I was unbearable and I think that's that's it's it's a it's a natural thing for people to kind to be like acting out that way and and and not really necessarily know how to handle themselves very professionally like that's something you learn as you go along so I always it's it's kind of head scratching to me and we just saw with Jonathan Druand where I was like oh you can't you can't

you can't play with this guy like he he's he's too much of a me first guy and then all of a sudden and it worked quite well for them in the playoffs. I think a lot of NHL teams have a hard time dealing with young athletes. I really do. And you don't want to call it babysitting, but for lack of a better term, I will. They have a hard time babysitting. I mean, you're not getting a fully formed human being at that point.

You're not getting a man. You're drafting someone at 17 years of age, and you're expecting them to be a 10-year professional in their first season. They're not that, right? And it can cost you if you can't, if you don't manage it well. I mean, ask any sane Boston Bruins fan whether they want the Tyler Sagan deal back. Right. Of course they do.

And what happened there? Oh, he showed up one day in the same suit he was wearing the night before. Where did he go like? Guys, you're dealing with young people. Like, you need to have a strategy or an understanding of how to work with them. They're not all going to show up and be perfect Jonathan Taveses and Sidney Crosby's. They're not. They all come from different places.

They all have different backgrounds. They all have different personalities. They'll have different beliefs. they all have different strengths and they all have different weaknesses. There's not one cookie cutter way to deal with them, much like there's not one cookie cutter way to deal with veterans. Like dealing with a veteran who's going through a divorce, it's a lot different than dealing with a veteran

who's just had his third child and his marriage is fantastic. There are a different way. The NHL is much more accommodating dealing with that older player than it is with the younger players. And that's where you start to see, in the Boston example, you really start to see mistakes. I'm with you with that. I think the NHL is, and they've always had a hard time with that.

You know, oh, the separity kid, oh, you know, the protruding nail gets hammered down, the old Japanese proverb. It's been like that forever. Right. You know, know, know, you go pick up the puck. Hey, you wait in the back of the bus while we check in the hotel first, like all the protocols and all that. I mean, who the, listen, man, even when it comes to the CBA and lockouts, who's the first group that gets thrown out of the bus?

The kids that aren't in the NHL yet. Right. I mean, I mean, they're triple salary capped, as it is. They're the first ones. to get scalped. And I think a lot of it, too, teams just have a hard time dealing with young athletes. The interesting thing about that is, too,

the people that have the thinest skin, I find, aren't the kids. It's the older guys. Right, yeah. That have the thin skin about, oh, I got a fan, said the wrong thing. Well, even just like, you know, Patrick Linae says something, you know,

controversial, the kids will be fine with it on every other team. They'll kind of think it's funny. Yeah. You know, they'll text about it, they'll DM about it. And they'll think, hey, man, you see what line A said? Yeah, dude, that's awesome.

Right. Because they don't care in that sense. But it's the older set that want to turn every comments and every wrong move into a metaphor for something greater and an audit on someone's character and personality. And here comes the big one, Dimitri. Say with me, oh, I don't know. We have to do something about him. He's becoming a distraction. Yeah.

yeah well it's like you just need to remember that uh you can't you can sort of learn this stuff as you go along and and and settle down a little bit and become more tame but you can't really uh learn how to score goals and be more talented like that's uh so you you should definitely think wisely about which one you want to pick and then help work on the other one right it's like when when teams pick these character guys as opposed to the more talented guys and then and then they're wondering why they're having trouble with scoring goals and winning games. It's, it's, it's just, all of it's really kind of funny to me. And the thing is, too, this has been said countless times, it's only a problem when you lose.

Yes. When you're winning, everything's, everything's fine. And, oh, he's quirky. Oh, he's got a unique personality. If you're losing, he's a distraction. He needs to be more focused. You know, he does, you know, he's a renegade who doesn't have the same, same type of emotions, motivations as everybody else.

All of it gets amplified when you lose. When you win, you can put up with it. Yeah, I mean, when you lose, that that personality trait becomes a scapegoat. Yeah, when you're winning, he helps helps keep the room loose. Now, mind you, there are some real assholes. Of course, of course. Like there are plenty that come through that you're just like, oh, man, we can't get this guy out of the room fast enough. Of course.

There's a human element to it, and you have to deal with these people on a daily basis, of course. I think everyone has shared the experience of not looking forward. to coming to work because of one person. Because that person completely poisons it for everybody else, hockey is no different. I just find that there's almost an unreal and at times unattainable expectation for a lot of kids who, I mean, let's face it, by the time to get the NHL, when they get to the NHL, it's the first time they've ever heard no in their professional lives. No, you didn't make this team.

What do you mean? I didn't make this team. I've made every single, no, what do you mean? I'm not playing first line. A big, first time in my entire life. You know, there needs to be mechanisms to deal with those kids and those situations. Because not everyone's coming is a perfectly, you know, mature, you know, the well-formed little Buddha that can Tai Chi everything, go, okay, is this cool. All things will pass.

This will be fine. Yeah, for sure. Jeff, what are you doing these days now that the combine's done and the M-Cups done? Are you preparing yourself for the draft? Yeah, just draft prep right now. That's all I'm doing is finding, trying to do it. to find as many stories for as many players as I can and trying to go as deep as I can and putting together.

I've got some writing to do for Sportsnet.com. Some mock draft stuff, some player profiles. So it is all about the draft because essentially after the Memorial Cup, I'm kind of done for the season. Like, I've wrapped up outside of the draft. So I'm just spending all my time doing draft stuff. Okay. So from your discussions with people around the game and all that stuff, do you think that

obviously the way we sort of think about this stuff has changed over the past handful years in terms of drafting smaller players and taking risks on guys playing overseas, especially if they're in the KHL just because there is that risk factor that they might not come over.

Do you think that teams in 2016 are much more likely to, you know, take the chance on those types of players in either of those camps or do you think we still have a bit of a ways to go here? I still think of those two players of the same quality. they'll deferred the big player than the small player,

but it really is changing. You know, like, you look at, like, Clayton Keller is going to go really high, and he should. I mean, he's got, like, he's got Mitch Martyr-type creativity. That, this guy is phenomenal. Does he end up in Division 1?

Does he end up in Windsor? We don't know. But some team is going to do really well taking someone like Clayton Keller. And there was once in a time where, I don't know, look at the size, maybe we'll take a flyer on him best case scenario in the second round.

He may be a top 10 pick depending on what team likes him and depending on who's gone before. Now mind you, there's still going to be a lot of deferrence to someone like Logan Brown who's a 6'6 centerman. And, you know, he's coveted by a lot of those teams. I know that the Columbus Blue Jackets

at number three really covet Logan Brown, really covered Pierre-Luc Dubois, question there whether he's a winger or a centerman and that's an interesting point of discussion as well um but you know the there's still more so than ever right now i don't think that size is the barrier to entry if you've demonstrated you can play at that elite level i think with so much on the line demetri to be honest with you with with the difference between winning and losing being so slight if you think and there is history on the side now marty st louis and johnny goddrow and go right down the list, Tyler Johnson.

With history being on the side of the small guy now more so than ever, I think that the teams are quite open to drafting small guys, more so up front than they are on the blue line, although that's changing Samuel Girard's going to be a nice pick for someone. The only place where the size discussion happens is in nets. That's the only one. Like once upon a time, I don't know if we talked about this last time, One part of time if I told you this, if I put two kids against the wall, and one of them was 510 and one of them was 6.5 and said,

Dimitri, what position, either defense or goalie, should each of these kids play? You'd probably 10 years ago say, well, the 6'5 guys got to play defense and the 510 guys got to be your goalie. It's totally flipped now. It's completely flipped. Where the barrier to entry in net now is, what do you figure, 6'22? Yeah, sounds about right. That's definitely trending upwards. Right. But as far as defensemen go, I mean, I think Joe Hicketts is going to play with the Detroit Red Wings.

Yeah. How big is Joe Hicketts? Yeah, it's a pretty small guy. Right. But I mean, if you can think the game, if you can move your feet, if you can move the puck, then there's room for you as a defenseman regardless of how big or in this case, how small you are. Yeah. Well, and also think about it logically this way. Like on the free agent market, what gets the big bucks? It's the guys that score goals and get a lot of points, right? And if you can get some of that offense for cheap on these entry-level deals, it seems like a no-brainer that you'd be targeting that high upside and then filling out your roster later in the draft or via trade or free agency

where you can get it cheaper. Like it's like it's a no-brainer. It's so kind of surprising it has taken this long to come around to that idea. I'm not sure if you've noticed this, but things move pretty slow in the NHL. Yes, it's not a very progressive organization. There's a generation of general manager that had Anteatian. and present have to work their way out of the industry for new thinking to evolve. So, yeah, it's, and there has been, as we've seen it with the past, what, five or six years,

you know, the shrinking of the age of the general manager. Like, once in a time, it's like, a GM at 40? I don't think so. You know, that's the domain of the 50-year-olds and the 60-year-olds. And now that's shrinking with your Steve Eiseman's and your Shiro's and general of John Chica. G's crying out. He's 26. years old, but that age is coming down.

And with that comes more forward vision, but it just takes a while for that old-school thought to work its way out of the system. Well, and I was talking about this on, I think, the most recent podcast, when I had Bill West on, we were discussing the Penguins. And obviously, Mike Solomon's been around the block, but I do think that this sort of movement of teams

bringing in the coach they have at the HL level that's worked with a bunch of their younger guys and their prospects to kind of keep that circle going. and keep the continuity. Like, I'm very intrigued by that as opposed to sort of the old guard recycling of people that have been around the block, and you know exactly where you're going to get with them. The Bruce Buzro effect once upon a time, right? When Bruce came in, what was it, 2007?

Yeah. You know, that became a thing. All of a sudden, Boudreux and now everyone scrambles. And as successful as Bruce Boudro was, you know, Atlanta tried to do the same thing with John Anderson, who was, you know, very successful American hockey coach, led Chicago every single year. they were competitive, would win called their cup championships. You know, where Bruce succeeded, John had a harder time. So I don't think it's necessarily, hey, it's, it is always the smartest play.

But to your point, you know all the guys in the system. Well, I shouldn't say, you know most of the guys in the system. We already have that relationship with, you know, you look at Sullivan, for example, and have a look at the success of some of the secondary players on the Pittsburgh Penguins right now. Not unlike John Cooper, right, between Syracuse and Tampa, was the exact same story. All those guys that played with him on that Bofo Syracuse team, all of a sudden, bona fide in each other's and are now getting paid some serious money. I think a lot of it was because they brought up the American Hockey League coach,

and the American Hockey League coach was comfortable as American Hockey League players, and it worked out well for everybody involved. Yeah, and there's a lot of those guys kind of around the league. Now you look around. Like, I think I'm a big fan of John Hines, for example, there's Bill Peters and you go on and on down the list. And I think that, let's say five years from now, I think like a majority of the coaches are probably going to be guys that at some point, whether it's with that organization

or some other one around the league, where kind of got their start that way. You know, one of the ones to follow to, if you're interested in following the career path of coaches, Chris Knoblo, of course, in Erie with the Otters, that's a well-told one. But for me, one of the more forward-thinking coaches in the game right now, he's locked up and can't move anywhere for at least another years, Rocky Thompson and the Windsor's pit fires. Now, when I see Rocky Thompson, a lot of people think, oh, he's that wild crazy guy with the big hair and 500 penalty minutes a season and, you know, throwing coconuts and get guys

off the band, like that crazy guy we saw in the NHL. Rocky Thompson, Dimitri, is one of the most progressive, forward-thinking people who thinks the game in a way that I think people like you and other like-minded people would love, he gave a presentation last year in Florida at the draft, speaking of the draft, gave a presentation, they do a coaches clinic every year at the draft, right? And a lot of times a lot of the guys in the back, like, you know,

the coaches would just be like, la-di-da-da-da, you know, barely break out your notebook, just have a cup of coffee, maybe catch a nap, okay, what have I got to do today, got to get to the gym, got to do my grocery list, we got to get my dinner reservations. But the minute Rocky started talking, a lot about his presentation was how the game

is played now, the nature of where lanes are open for zone exits, how you stretch D out on power plays and set up bump passes for shots. It was like right away, everyone's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Not that it's revolutionary stuff, but it's just a subtle different way

to look at the game. And if you didn't know who it was talking, you'd say to yourself, you know, who's this new forward-thinking guy who's come out of nowhere to present this type of information? And then, you know, you look up, you know, you look up from your notebook, and it's one of the toughest, you know, guys of the last 20

years in the NHL, Rocky Thompson. Who's this nerd? Who's this nerd? Yeah, well, that's it, right? It's funny, too, because Rock looks like a nerd now, too. He's all lean and skinny in glasses, and I bug him about him. I know I've known Rock for a while, and I always bug him about it. He's like, yeah, I look a lot different now.

He has really short hair and the glasses, but he does. Like, he looks like your classic school nerd. And he was one of the toughest guys at his era, playing at the Western League in the NHL as well. But if you're looking for that next wave of forward-thinking intellectual coaches, it's a former tough guy in the NHL, Rocky Thompson. It's fascinating. That's awesome. Yeah, I'll definitely keep an eye on that.

All right. Let's, I don't know, is there anything else we wanted to touch on while we're here? Stanley Cup final? You're following that at all or no? Yeah, I have a glance at it. Occasionally. It's upsetting to me that I thought we were going to have a good seven-game roaster here. I thought this was going to be really good seven games.

Let's draw this one out. It's going to be back and forth. I know the games have been close, but this is an interesting series in that the games have been close, but does it feel like they've been close? Yeah, it's weird. There's been obviously the two overtime games and pretty much every one of them has been decided by one goal. And you're right, it hasn't it?

It's felt very one-sided in the sense that it's never felt like Pittsburgh's really ever been in serious trouble. like even when it's been tied, it's like they just seem like they're just due for a goal at pretty much at all times. Ifs and butts were candies and nuts, we'd all have a Merry Christmas, but I want to play this game with you.

Would it be different if it was, I know they had their adversity and who knows how they would have ended up, but how would we be talking right now if this were a Pittsburgh Chicago final? How much different is it? Because it is pretty obvious that San Jose can't make the adjustments

for the speed of the Pittsburgh penguin. Right. Which is a bit startling because a lot of the other Western Conference teams really struggled with the speed of the sharks, right? Like when the sharks were playing the Kings, the Kings just like didn't really know how to handle it at all. And now it's been flipped on them. And I guess it's just a testament to what a different animal the penguins are just in general. Yeah, it's almost as if the Pittsburgh Penguins don't do things fast. They do things suddenly.

Like that's kind of how it looks to me. like suddenly, boom, change of possession and they're off the races. Right. It's not that they're like, okay, galloping and picking up speed. It's just like everything that happens with Pittsburgh is sudden and deliberate. And that's the one thing that really stands out to me is how deliberate everything looks with the Pittsburgh Penguins. It might not always work, but you can tell that every pass is deliberate, every shot is deliberate, every decision is a deliberate decision. as opposed to San Jose who are still, I don't know, caught in this idea that I'm not sure that I'm doing the right thing right now.

And that gets compounded when you can't win a game, you can't get ahead, you're starting to lose. This team is really fast. Am I making the right decision? Like sports is, I mean, anything is always the best, whether it's hockey, whether it's running, whether, when something seems to be working through you as opposed to you work. working through it, it's a beautiful thing. Because it's effortless. You know, boxers always talked about this. You know, punching someone and not feeling it at all.

Guys in hockey will talk about the perfect body check. You don't feel a thing. You feel like you go through the person. Right. And that's kind of that groove that Pittsburgh is on right now. The opposite of that, where you feel everything, are the San Jose sharks. You know, like, you only notice clothes when they're too tight. and you know you only you only notice your belt when it's on too tight and that's kind of how

I feel about the San Jose sharks and the Pittsburgh Penguins right now they can't tell you what they're wearing because it feels so perfect but the San Jose sharks everything seems snug to them yeah that's kind of how I feel when I watch the game well and I also think it's like just watching the sharks it's one of those things where they've been so used to dictating the pace and kind of just being played on their terms, then now when they have the puck, you're right, it seems like they're overthinking it. And I wonder if a little bit it has to do with the fact that they're just like every

time they're thinking, like, okay, if we don't make the perfect play here, the penguins are going to get the puck back, and all of a sudden we're going to be scrambling around all over the place, and we're going to have to do all that again. And then they're just like kind of getting in their own heads, and it's obviously not working out the way they were playing against St. Louis, for example, where they looked like they couldn't do anything wrong. it's funny too because I try not to do this as much as possible

and I try to keep things as quantifiable a measurement as possible but there is something really to be said for confidence and you can't explain it you know and I mean I work a lot with Colby and I'm trying with him in the Memorial Cup for two weeks and he kept talking about the one thing that he kept coming back to

because he's still tight with Crosby and you know used to play with him was his wingman like all of that stuff And he said, listen, when he's confident, there's no one better at his game. Like, oh, come on. It's like this wish you watched something. No, like as an athlete, it's the most important thing. And that leads to what you're talking about, too.

It seems that if, you know, San Jose continues to hesitate on things because they're afraid of what will happen if they mess up. And when that becomes part of your reality, it's death. Right. That's death. Like, when you don't have the confidence to make the play that you want to make because of the fear of what might happen, that's when it's over.

Yeah. The past few games, I've been watching them, and the ice service has been so bad. I've just been thinking about how this entire discussion about the bad ice surface is just so up your alley. I feel like you have a lot of thoughts on this. Yeah, I got a few. I'm still startled at a place where, well, okay,

let me back up. First of all, the bad ice is a product of, one, get your game out of June anyway. shell. Yes. No matter what I say this, every single year, if I could have the commissioner's ear and only make one recommendation, every year it would be the same thing. Get the game out of June.

Not going to happen. They're married to 82 games. They're not going to go earlier, and guys need the rest. It's not going anywhere right now. I get it. They're not going to compact the season because the injuries become more of a factor. I get that. But get your game out of June.

Two, this is the fight between the president and the general. manager where the general manager wants the building to be cold so the ice is hard. And if that means that a season ticket holder has to wear a coat, so be it. We need to have a good playing surface to put on the best possible product. Whereas a team president would like to make sure that people that pay a lot of money as season ticket holders are as comfortable as possible. I mentioned this on our podcast the other day. Wait, you have a podcast?

Allegedly. Every now and then Greg and I get together, ramble out some non-b-b-sus. nonsense and then we both want or marry ways um as a fan what's more important to you being comfortable at the game or enjoying a good game well aren't those two things a little bit related like aren't you aren't you going to be comfortable if you just completely involved with the product can you can you enjoy a game of hockey if it means you have to wear a coat absolutely and No, listen, I can. I know you can.

And a lot of people listen to this podcast can as well. But I'm talking, I mean, we all know who we're talking about here. The people that pay a lot of money to sit in those very, very close seats that would like to be comfortable. Thank you very much. Well, if you don't want to be cold and don't be sitting beside an ice surface, I feel like that seems like a good rule of thumb. I agree with you. You and I have the exact same page about this. But isn't that one of the questions you have to ask yourself?

Because, I mean, listen, you can make, regardless of where it is, there's an outdoor rake in Mexico City. You can make ice and you can probably make really good ice too. There are challenges. Of course there are challenges. June is a challenge. Warm temperatures are a challenge. A lot of people in a building are a challenge. I get all that.

The other thing that really strikes me too is it's 2016. And the technology of the game everywhere has changed. Look how different the skates are. Look how different the sticks are. Look how different the boards are. They're now forgiving. Look at different the glasses. There is glass.

and once in a bottom time, you know, there was. Like, everything about the game has changed, except the surface that has played on. And you would have thought that at least by now, there would have been some type of movement to change the surface. Right. Like, I do wonder at some point down the road, whether we really have the conversation about,

this is going to sound great, but whatever. You used to, me and Dimitri talking about this on the podcast. Will there be a movement to really address the question of, should this thing be played on ice? Is there a technology where you can use skates and play on it and not need a zamboni after 20 minutes? And that's the other issue too. I mean, by the end of every period, regardless of what the ice is like and where you are, last five minutes is always chewy.

Yeah. Right? It's a slushy machine. Yeah. So, I don't know. I mean, I don't like the complaining about it because you know it going. in. I don't like when I hear players grousing about it. It's always from the losing team. I just, you know, you know, you have your expectations. I remember Sackett got blasted for it for

commenting on the ice in Dallas and one of those Colorado Dallas series so many, so many years ago. But isn't that kind of the expectation that you go into it knowing that it's June, it's San Jose, this ice isn't going to be fantastic? I remember McLean telling me a story once, Doug, when he was with the Florida Panthers. And they were a struggling team. They were a defensive team. They liked a slow, game. Thank you very much. So every time the Pittsburgh Penguins came to town, you know what Doug did? He had the Zamboni driver dump an extra tank of water on the ice.

Really slow things down. A lot of gamesmanship. Totally. Totally. 100%. But the thing is, you'd like to ideally see, these are two of the best teams in the league and some of the biggest stars in the league are playing in the series. And you'd like to see them sort of do what they do best.

and it's kind of a bummer when external factors kind of get in the way of that. But I agree. I mean, both teams are dealing with the same thing, and it's the team that handles it better. It will obviously wind up winning. Yeah, I just keep coming back with the idea of make the rings colder. Sorry, make the rings colder and get the game out of June. If we're going to be married to ice the way we are.

Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you. All right. Having said that, if you get the game out of June, The other thing that I would like to do is see the NHL sponsor of Roller Hockey League in the summers. I've blasted off on this podcast.

He had to vote Roller Hockey International or where you're at on roller hockey. But I love it. And I'd love to see the NHL do something like that in the off season. Well, okay, this summer we'll have a whole podcast devoted to roller hockey. How about that? R-H-I, baby, bring it on. Let's do that. Did you ever, were you, did you ever go to any Vancouver Boodoo games?

No. Remember the Vancouver Boodoo at all? R-HI? No. Okay. Generation gap just occurred on the P.D.O.cast right there, folks. At the 41-minute mark. Jeff, man, it was a lot of fun as always, and I'm sure we'll get you back on before the draft, and we'll get you on to help us preview it.

Yep, sure. My pleasure. It's always a good time. I'll talk to in a couple weeks. Absolutely, man. Talk soon. The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey PDOCast. Thank you.