The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 98: Come At The King, You Best Not Miss

Episode Date: August 8, 2016

Nick Mercadante and Patrick Kearns join the show to discuss the imbalance the New York Rangers face between their personnel and their desired strategy, whether Alain Vigneault is underrated or overrated, and the heavy demands being placed on Henrik Lundqvist's shoulders. Here’s a quick rundown of the topics covered: 0:30 Setting the scene 6:00 The Rangers blueline woes 18:00 Developing young players 24:00 Where does Alain Vigneault rank amongst coaches? 38:00 Henrik Lundqvist's unenviable job 42:00 RIT Hockey Analytics Conference 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.

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

These days, everything is go, go, go. It's non-stop hustle all the time. Work, friends, family. Expect you to be on 24-7? Well, sometimes you just need to reach for a Coors Light because it's made to chill. Coors Light is cold-loggered, cold-filtered, and cold-packaged. It's as crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies. It is literally made to chill.

Coors Light is the one I choose when I need to unwind. So when you want to hit reset, reach for the beer that's made to chill. Get Coors Light and the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart. Celebrate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden Colorado. Regressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast.

My name is Dimitri Filipovich. and joining me in studio are two special guests. One of them's been on before. You're familiar with them. It's my guy, Nick Mercadante. Nick, what's going on? Hi, Dimitri. How are you?

I'm good. And the other one is a familiar face, but one that you've never actually heard on this podcast before. It's Patrick Hurons. Patrick, what's going on with you? What's up? How are you doing, man?

I'm good. We're doing this in person. We're on location. Yeah, how would you guys describe this location? Because I don't even really know where I am right now. It's scenic Ridgewood Queens,

not Brooklyn. Not Brooklyn. Ridgwood Queens. We're on the islanders side of things now. Right. As far as New York.

Yeah, technically Queens and Brooklyn are both on Long Island. So if you don't want to talk about the Rangers, we don't have to talk about the Rangers. Well, luckily enough,

I mean, we have a Rangers fan and someone, Patrick, are you a Rangers fan or are you just cover them? I grew up a Ranger fan. You get close enough to a team. very hard to root for them. And close enough to any of the team's opponents.

So I just like, oh, these are all just like guys. You've seen how the sausage is made. Yeah, the sausage is not pretty. You've seen the sausage. Did you ever just being like a native New Yorker? Did you ever say like, should I be an Islanders fan? I mean, I guess you're young enough that the Islanders haven't been. No, I'm from New Jersey, actually.

I grew up in New Jersey. North New Jersey, like 20 minutes outside New York City. I took all my father's sports allegiances. So like Jets, Rangers, Yankees growing up, which is typically not how that sort of thing goes, but I just kind of followed in his footsteps. But I got a lot of blowback for not being a devil's fan because when I was a kid, they were really good.

Yeah, yeah. It's so strange, I mean, because I grew up in Connecticut. A big whalers. So I grew up a tattoo. That's right. Look at the Hartford Whalers. It's faded too. That's how you know.

It's really old. It's been through some stuff. Yeah, it's really old and I'm old. But, you know, so that was the strange thing for me. It's like, obviously hockey is my favorite sport. When your sport team leaves, like, where do you go, allegiance-wise? My dad is pretty much an Islanders fan. And I chose the Rangers.

But there wasn't, like, a rhyme or reason to that. I just, I don't know, it's like New York Yankees. Rangers, for some reason, went together in my head. Nix, you know. Yeah. I don't know. So. Yeah.

Well, you've been through some really good times with that. Well, yeah, the great part about becoming a Rangers fan in 19. 97 is no Stanley Cups. Right. Just heartache. Yeah, I mean, I at least the first, like, season I watched, my earliest memories of hockey are the Rangers winning the Stanley Cup because I would have been six years old then.

Right. So that was, like, my introduction to hockey, and then, like, 10 years of the devil's, like, completely dominating with three Stanley Cups there and all my classmates making fun of me for, like, in the Rangers. But I stuck with it, and now I don't care at all. I'm numb. Now I just don't have feelings

Yes that's a testament Of I've ever heard one Well let's talk a little bit about the Rangers I think they've had an interesting A couple months here Ever since I think it's safe to say They got kind of embarrassed in that They definitely got schooled

In that opening round series Against the Penguins Yeah They were due for They've been due for one of those Well okay The The cup run

season. They just had everything going in the playoffs, but mostly it was lunkwist. But I thought before that and after that, they were due for a series like what they had this past postseason with the penguins where they just get absolutely trounced. And every single time, it's really been Henrik taking them back from the brink. Like, they had that against the penguins the year before. And that would have honestly, that would have happened had they not had had had a plucked this the year before. They weren't. that good of a team when they went to the Eastern Conference file. Yeah, things were starting to work.

Lungwist again plays out of his mind in the playoffs and masks a whole ton of issues. But, I mean, you were right that they were due for that. And it's just amazing that it didn't happen earlier. Yeah, yeah. But what I love is, like, instantaneously, a huge portion of fans blame Lundquist. Instantaneously. Like, not even like, well, you know, he's been good all this time. Hey, one bad one.

What are you going to do? Yeah. Nope. It's, well, he's too old. He's falling apart. He let the team down. Who did he let? He didn't let anybody down?

They were bad. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, my favorite thing is, like, when you ascribe that a player's not, like, in this, like, elite echelon because of a team success thing. So, like, Alunquist never gets it done in the big games, guys, except for, like, the, like, 14 games that he dragged a mediocre team to the Stanley Cup. And then the next year, when he dragged a less than mediocre team, to an Eastern Conference final and almost a second Stanley Cup

Other than those two times, of course. Yeah, exactly. Other than every season when he's a top three goalie, he's left the team. I mean, if we're going to look at what's a big game, obviously game seven is a big game. Just look at his record in game sevens. If you're really going to do that, just win baby type of mentality, what's his record in game seven?

It's like eight and two or something like that. There's so many playoff series too where they've been down and out that just by sheer Longquist ability he's brought them back into. Yeah. Well, he's going to have to be really good again this year because I'm looking at their depth chart of defenseman or general manager.com and it's a lot of familiar faces. Isn't it awesome? Isn't it awesome?

Like, okay, so you're sitting there with, see, usually when I do podcasts, I have the laptop up so I can quickly look at things. But isn't it awesome when you pull up the Rangers defense and actually visually look at it? You're like, this is incredibly thin. Right. Like, it doesn't look like an NHL defense unless, I mean, aside from name recognition. Right. You look at Stahl and Girardi and you're like, if you haven't watched hockey in three years, you're like, oh, those are.

I mean, they're definitely making a lot of money, so they must be good, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, they're NHL guys. You know, they've got those guys coming back. But if you've been watching the team, you obviously know. And I don't think I'm saying anything. What's hilarious is a couple years ago, this was a really controversial, it was really controversial to say Gerardi. is absolutely not even an NHL caliber defenseman anymore.

Now it's not even controversial to say that. A lot of people will still give him benefit of doubt and say, well, you know, last year, injuries, I guess. But then to kind of compound on that, if a guy's 32 years old and he's been suffering from injury troubles, like how do you expect him to come back? Because generally don't get better. If that's what the Rangers were blaming the last season on,

ignoring the seasons before that, They're saying last year he was hurt, we expected to come back. Name a defenseman that's had a pretty injury-plagued terrible 31 and 32-year-old seasons. And then come back to be. They win awards for that. That's like a really rare thing where you win an award for being a comeback type player. Well, I think my favorite part of this is right beside Dan Jarady's name on General Fentager, there's an anchor symbol, which denotes that he has a no movement clause.

I knew you're going to say that. But there's so many places we can take that. So, um, yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, um, I always think like, I think about like, um, and maybe this is just me, like, you know, thinking back to when I really thought I could like live the dream and become a pro hockey player once upon a time. But like, I always try to put myself in the, in the skates of somebody on the team like a McDonough. Right. And think what, okay, obviously they're teammates and they must be friends. They play out of line together for years. So, But like, what does he think going into the season? Is he looking forward to the season as something where it's like, I mean, for him personally, as a player, these are really his peak years that he's in. I have a theory on this that might get more into player analysis than anything and why I think former players generally don't make great analysts is that when you're a guy like Ryan McDonough,

you're too close to it. Right. Like people, NHL, you hear all these ex-NHL players, they talk about it. with the Shea Weber P.K. Subban trade there. Well, I would hate to play against Shea Weber. Yeah, of course you'd hate to play against the guy like Shea Weber, because he beats the crap out of you all game. Because he's big, and he hits hard.

You know, if the goal of your day as a kid is to keep your lunch money, and there's two bullies, and one of them sneaks up and grabs the lunch money out of your pocket, and it's successful 80% of the time. And then the other guy, 60% of the time, just beats the living crap out of you. Right. But you keep your money more often. You're going to be more scared of the guy that beats you up.

It doesn't matter about that. So I think with, like, a guy like Ryan McDonough, He looks at like having a guy like Gerardi, who he's friends with, who's trying really hard on the ice, who's making the plays on the ice. Like, you know, when you're on the ice and you're really close to something, you can't totally tell the difference. It's really hard to kind of see that ice level. And I think it's why it makes players bad analysts. They just can't take it off. It's that. It's the logical fallacy.

We, on Twitter and every place else, we say, well, you know, front offices make bad decisions. Well, front offices are mostly former players, really. Right. What is this fallacy where, like, we actually think that players that are on the ice absolutely know better as to who is, you know, I think everybody knows who's great. Right. But the in-between, I think everybody knows who's garbage. Right.

But the in-between, you know, he's got a booming shot. That's something that stands out. He hits hard. That's something that stands out. A big body. Yeah, they're going to notice those things. They're not necessarily going to know unless they're guys that are really kind of getting into statistical analysis. And there are guys like that.

They're not going to necessarily know that, you know, a Shea Weber is a good player, but maybe not a great player like a P.K. Sue ban. Well, I think also part of it, like, just working in Girardi's favor is sort of just the nature of hockey in terms of how conservative is, right? Because, like, I don't know. Let's say, like, he was trying to do. all this crazy stuff out there, like taking the puck out himself and like doing spin moves and like falling down on the ice and turning it over. He's a showbo. People would be like, oh, you know, this guy sucks.

He's making mistakes. He's a showbo. Because he never really tries to do anything. People don't realize that he's not adding anything to the table. He's a stay-in-home guy. He's safe. He's conservative. He's not going to make bad mistakes.

You want them out there when the game is tight. You know, those are all, you're absolutely right. These are all things that kind of feed into. It's our own... And those are positives of a hockey player, a guy that you don't notice, you know, their mistakes, but you also don't notice what they add to a team. Keith Yandel was the perfect example of the exact opposite. 90% of hockey fans will tell you, well, he made a lot of mistakes in the defensive zone.

He also had the puck on a stick 80% of the time when it's leaving. And that's obviously, you know, somebody that watches a ton of hockey and goes back and watches the table. See, the positives far outweigh the negatives with guys like Keith Yandel. And, you know, you win with guys like Keith Yandel more than you win with. guys like Dan Girardi. But it's just that, you know, if you don't recognize, you get, the common fan can't pick up that Gerardi's gap control is awful, that guys skate around him breaking into the zone. There's just, oh, he keeps things to the outside. And even more so, it's, um, you know, a fan will turn on a game, watch a game. They'll see meandle maybe make five or six breakout passes.

It's a normal part of hockey. Just kind of gloss over as you're watching. I think everybody does it when they're watching. Right. Then he makes that one pass that gets picked. kicked off right at the blue line and comes back the other way for like a two on one or an uncontested shot. Right. And it's the recency bias thing. Your brain just sticks with that. Well, Gerardi chucks it around the boards every single time.

Yeah. That's all he does. Yeah. So unless you're keyed in on that is something that's bad. Right. As a rule of thumb, you just go, oh, it's hockey. The puck goes around the board sometimes. Right.

It goes to the guy at the half one. They don't notice that it is to a guy that's condemned. contested at the half wall and they're losing that puck battles. Well, because, yeah, it doesn't lead to a goal against right away. That's right. It leads to one probably like 20, 30 seconds later or winds up in a penalty that's a goal later. But like... In a lot of Rangers fans, I mean, to the average, to the casual fans credit, a lot of Rangers

fans noticed this past season, because I heard it on Twitter nonstop, they get hemmed up in their zone. Yeah. They get suffocated in their zone. And they recognize while some of that is the defense. They also blamed it on forwards, leaving the zone early, but that's an AV. that's what he wants them to do. But a lot of casual fans did notice that,

but I don't know if they noticed that where that was specifically coming from, you know, that that's guys that that either don't have the confidence or don't have the ability to make outlet passes to somebody who's, you know, who's scooting along the boards to get another outlet pass on the fly up.

Which is also weird, because that's also A.V. system, the defenseman's ability to get the puck out of the zone and kind of progressive playups. That counterattack style, right? That counterattack style, they couldn't play it last year. They couldn't play AV system last year. And now you look at this year.

And you wonder how, you know, where is it coming from? No Yandel, no Boyle. I know people dogged Boyle, but he did a lot of good things with the puck. Yep. He's a really good passer. And to expect Brady Shea to jump in and log top four minutes, I think is crazy. Right. Minutes of a, you know, maybe on the back of his career, but Dan Boyle's a borderline

Hall of Fame defenseman. Right. Keith Yandel is one of the. five premier offensive defensemen in the game if you want to ascribe you know say call somebody an offensive defenseman I think so who's going to get those minutes I mean to be Shea is it is it going to be you know Holden yeah isn't is Nick does Nick Holden replaced the offense I could see A& trusting him because he's a yeah I mean if they want to

make like Dan Jarry look better by comparison I think they should play Nick Holden but I don't think that's I don't think that's going to be like the interesting thing is actually I don't know what you guys think of Brady Shea from what limited exposure I saw him I actually liked him. Oh, I like him. But he seems like much more of a guy that, at least early in his career, I don't know if he'll develop as more of a puck mover. But he seems like a guy that wants to instantly, like, puts his head down and just skate it out.

And he has a natural ability to pull it off. And it's, like, scintillating to watch sometimes. He's a great skater. But it's not going to be that type of guy that's going to replace the handle in terms of, oh, I'm like behind my net, quickly get it out, right? He's going to kind of try and do it himself a little bit. So one of my buddies made this comparison, and it's going to sound like a bad comparison. But I don't know.

Maybe it's because I'm, I watched his college career as well, but Matt Gilroy. Okay. Brady Shea plays like Matt Gilroy, but he's got NHL size and strength. Gilroy didn't have those things. Gilroy wasn't a great passer, but with the puck on his stick, he could weave and dodge and duck and move into neutral ice and then kind of shovel off to somebody else. That's what Brady Shea can do, but he's got the NHL size, he's got the strength.

He's probably got a better skating stride than it. Gilroy. Mentioning Matt Gilroy just destroyed Reiger fans. Well, right. I know. I know. And that's, it sounds bad. They're not even going to turn the team on.

It sounds bad. You just pause the podcast, open up to team store, ordering Brady Shay jerseys. Whenever somebody listens to this, they're going to go, did Nick just say that Matt Gilroy is a positive? That comparison is a positive comparison. But, but the, the point being he's a guy who I think you're right. He's not, I mean, maybe he will be, but I don't look at a. is an elite puck

passing the puck. Actually, McDonough is kind of more like that as well. Right. And if Brady Shea's upside as Ryan, McDonough, they found a great defense in. I don't know that it's going to quite be Ryan McDonough. In terms of preferences, right? If you can get a McDonough-style player

that is really steady on your second pair behind McDonough because they're both left-handed and going to play on the left side. Although they might try to break Shea in on the right side because their right-handed defensive depth is so bad this year. Avey hates doing that, though. But he's got no choice, really. If you look at the team, you've got...

Brady Shea, for all intents and purposes, has a spot on this team, I think, right now. But then you look that is holding the odd guy out, and are they going to play Micklewraff in the third pair? Because I don't think Elaine Vigno likes Micklearth. Maybe having Bucabum now as the coach and his familiarity with Mickleraft helps McElrath's case a little bit. But I just, I don't think Elaine Vigno is comfortable with trotting Dylan McElrath out there as their third pair right-handed defensemen.

I always wondered, because, you know, A.V. has this, he has a little bit of a reputation of a guy who's not prospect friendly or a young player friendly. It takes him a little while to get confidence. And I don't know what builds the confidence for him. But I wondered if Mickle-Rass development was held back by A.V. Or by himself. Maybe he's, you know, or maybe Ulf. Right. And I mean, it could be a combination of things. He also hit a pretty bad knee injury that, you know, it took him a while to overcome. He missed a lot of time in Hartford. I mean, you know, maybe he's just not that good of a player. I would like to see him get an everyday chance in the third line. I think he does a lot of things right. I think he has a lot of holes in his game still. But when he play with Yandel. You know, it's, you can't keep up with Keith Yandel a lot of times. But, you know, if he had a really steady partner on the left side, and I don't want to say that him, and Shea is a great third pairing right away because of... Well, and then you're giving all those minutes to Gerardian... And Saul is...

And who does McDonald play with Klein? You know, Kevin Klein's not a first pairing defenseman. He's been better than a lot of people expected, but you're not a Stanley Cup contender with Kevin Klein on your top pair. I hate this topic. All right. Well, you're mentioning Avey and how he handles prospects, and I mean, he definitely has established that rep,

but I feel like... going to be very hard pressed to find any coaches that are very prospect friendly, especially when they're coaching teams that are trying to win a Stanley Cup, right? Like, generally those two things in hockey especially don't really, they kind of clash. Yeah, they're not in, they're not in prospect development mode in New York. That's not, uh, that's not what we're trying to do. Yeah, and they're going to trade them. Which fascinates me, like, I'm so curious to see what happens with Pavlovich this year because I imagine he's probably going to start in the KHL for a while and they're kind of ease him into it at a, like, I don't know, like he's definitely not going to just

jump in and be like top six minutes right. away, even though he's probably, like, top six talent immediately. His tiny, too, man. And you saw those photos of him? Right. He's gonna feel out. Like, this is a little guy. Like, all three of us could take him in a fun.

It looks like, and I am the weakest. Well, especially since he gets, like, most of his, like, comparisons. They might be lazy just because they're like, well, both Russian, but, like, he gets a lot of mock in comparisons in terms of, like, his, like, his length and sort of, like, how he's, like, more of a playmaker than a shooter and a score. Yeah. And he says that himself. Yeah.

You know, he emphasizes his playmaking a lot more than his shooting and scoring ability. I mean, expecting him to step in and score. 20 goals even is really He's wiry and dodgy If you see him If you get to see KHL highlights He's a gazelle in open ice He can he can actually move

One of the good thing is he was playing as like a teenager Against a grown man Yeah he's doing well And he was getting some power play time Here and there And I think that let him You know get probably some confidence With a part

You know a lot of it in hockey It's not so much your your physical size obviously could be a problem. If you're, you know, if you're the size of a good dro, but you're not shifty like he is, you might run into some problems when you, you know, when you have the puck. That's just an ability and skill thing. But I just no longer believe that there's a one-size-fits-all build or even two or three or four or five sizes fits all. Right.

Yeah, I generally agree with that. I think that like a guy, like, would Schnevich, you look at right now and you say I don't know that he has NHL size, not having established himself as an NHL player, especially because a lot of these guys he's been playing in a different league, a different rank, in a different

style of hockey, and he'll come into the NHL and guys will just eat him alive. Right. But I think that he has the talent to adapt to that. I do think he'll put on a little bit more size. He's not, you know, tiny, but like he's very wiry right now. Yeah.

You know, he's probably like 150 pounds. He looks really... But I mean that, you know, there's ways to sort of shelter a guy like that in terms of it's your coach's job and you can put him in position to succeed, like, you know, certain roles. Sometimes you'd play them less than not. It depends. It depends. Yeah. And I think that.

Because of that, people should kind of temper their expectations because he's going to be the type of guy where you're going to have to find the right fit. He's not going to come in and dominate this league. I think like a lot of fans that, you know, are expecting him to, like they expected Chris Kreider to do. You know, he would,

fans get very prospect heavy because it's an unknown quantity. So you say, oh, this guy that I haven't seen that everybody's telling me is really good is going to come in and he's going to play alongside Derek Stepon and Rick Nash. And he's going to score 30 goals and be replaced what we lost with this player. Yeah. And I do think, you know, that is where you get into like the scouting profile a little bit. And you look at a Chris Kreider versus Bukhnevich, like that. those two builds and you go, well,

Kreider is a physical freak. Yeah, he's built like an NFL outside. I'm not, I can put that aside. I know he's got the NHL size. Right. You know, and he's got the speed and he's got those things. That's still a question mark for a player that's not like him coming into the league. So fans are going to have to temper their expectations.

I would expect the AV and the coaching staff, they're going to have temperate expectations, and they're going to, they're not going to throw. roam him into the second line or something. No, I don't think they will. They're going to give him a shot and they're going to see how he looks, but they're probably going to look at him and say, eh, he needs some more seasoning and some more. I mean, that's just the way it is, you know? I mean, unless, again, unless he comes in like a drow where it's like he can't touch the guy, but I don't think he's that. No, I don't know that he's either.

And, you know, for all of AV's faults, guys have come and impressed him. Like, who thought Anthony Duclair would make the team what he did? And I know that eventually, you know, they sent him down and he gets traded and everything but he impressed A.V. And not to rub that one. That was a great yada yada moment. And you know, everything that happened after that. And then he gets traded for a defenseman that let walk for nothing. But I mean, he was able to impress Avey enough to get himself a spot in the lineup and he played, you know, sometimes in the top six. And I think that Buccinovich could impress. And there is room in AV's heart for a younger player to impress it at his time. It's not all just.

Tanner Glass that he dreams of at night. But he does love Tanner Glass. But he does love Tanner Glass, but I think that you know, Bunchnevich will get a fair enough shake probably. So Patrick, you and I were talking about this before we went on air, quote unquote. A.V. In terms of, there's a good discussion

on Twitter this past week about, because the score released a list of the top 30 coaches and AV was, I think they had him like 13th or so, so it was sort of in the middle. And it was interesting because for a guy ranked in the middle, it generated a very polarizing set of reactions. Because there's people that go, oh, he's definitely a top-end guy.

Like, you know, his teams won a lot and he's done a lot of great stuff. But then there's people that are like, yeah, but he loves Dan Gerardy and Tanner Glass and he has serious, you know, problems with prospects and all this stuff. And he should be way lower on the list. Where are you guys at with A.V. In terms of both just like compared to, you know, his peers, but also just as the job he's kind of done and what his shelf life is like in New York at this point. I think that A.V. gets a lot out of his teams when they're good teams.

I think that he doesn't get a lot out of specific players, but as a whole, I think that his ability to, A, kind of be open to a lot of things, but be, kind of implement his system and make players play that way when he has the roster to do it is a really good system, and it's been successful in this league. I think that probably he lets his bias get in the way a little too often for me to say that, you know, coaches should let guys play. lot more than they do. And I think A.V. typically does that with his top players. I don't think that he tries to make Rick Nash a certain player a certain way. I don't think he tried to force Matt Zuccarello to be anything that he wasn't. However, I think that he does kind of let those biases get in the way. And I think it's more of a guys that he knows he can trust. And maybe, you know, it's stuff that we don't see. It's stuff behind the scenes. And it's just a comfort level.

But he, you know, NHL coaches are coaching for their just. job at all times. Like you said, he's not in the business of growing Bouchnevich. He's in the business of winning this season and this year. I think he's a pretty good coach still. I mean, his success tells me that. But I mean, he's got his issues, certainly. I don't disagree with anything he said. But what I'll say is this. You're going to compare him to Matt Gilroy? He's the Matt Gilroy of coaches. Yes. Let me see if I can. work that comparison.

So here's what I think about AV. And this actually is kind of, you know, reflects on what you were saying. So I don't, okay, so there was a point in time where what Avey was doing as a coach, systems-wise, was not unique, but more progressive. It's not as much anymore. Teams stretch the ice at times. Other times they contract. You know, you saw like Tampa beat the shit out of the,

the Rangers doing that. I mean, we, you know, we took him to the brink in that series a couple years ago, but really they were beating the Rangers up with that same style of hockey. But they had the roster to do it. I think that A.V. has been doing that without the roster to do it. But, you know, okay, you could say that's not his fault. You get the players you have and you, but I think that one thing that A.V. struggles with is adapting to his roster.

I also think that he's not a good player evaluator. Yeah, I agree with that. I think that he will put Dan Gerardi out there for 30 minutes in a role that he shouldn't be in because he has some kind of whatever it is, you know, whether he just likes Dan Girardi as a leader on the team and a good guy and a good presence or whatever. Tanner Glass, you know, that's such an easy example. Like he, last year, even when they sent him down, you know that that was a management. decision. That was not an AV decision. And as soon as they could get him back up, he was right

back in the lineup and he still got his 50 whatever games. So I think that he's got these blind spots for players and he puts them in roles where they're not going to succeed. And he doesn't adapt to his roster. So, you know, I look at it from a coaching perspective because I've coached and I had to learn that because when I first started coaching, I was kind of like disciplinary and like, we're going to do things this way. Right. I know I know best. I know And I was an assistant coach. I wanted to reflect what the head coach was doing. So I said, look, guys, we're doing this system.

But, you know, I learned from the guy that I was coaching with that it's really not about that. It's about taking some structure that you have and, you know, kind of putting it on to the team, but then adapting it for specific roles and specific abilities that you see from the things you have. So if you're not going to actually, you know, if you're going to treat your team like they're all hammers when it's a hammer and a wrench and a, Then you're just being stupid. Right. So it's, I mean, and that goes back to something that I complimented him for, which was kind of the team's downfall this year,

was that he kind of let his top offensive players play the way they play to their strengths best, but it just didn't fit as a cohesive structure because, I mean, especially to not bring back to the Rangers defensive core, but they couldn't support his system. And, you know, maybe there was some players, you know, why wasn't Keith Yandel getting more minutes? it's because he would have fit Avis support structure system a lot better than a lot of other players would, Dan Gerardy, Mark Stahl. Right. I mean, even Kevin Klein to an extent. Yeah, NHL teams, they, you know, generally speaking, it's a good thing to impose your will on another team and play your system and do your thing.

But I think that that can easily be mistaken for just being hardheaded in the way you do things and not adapting to the roster you have. It's not really about flexing and adapting to what the league does. if you think that you have a roster that can do a certain thing really well, you know, like the penguins thought we have a speed roster. And if we, you know, make a couple moves and shake the lines up a little bit and take this coach out and put this one in, we can do what we want to do. Right. So that's what they did.

They structure their team around that philosophy. The Rangers haven't structured their team around, you know, AVs kind of stretch the ice philosophy. In fact, they've done probably the opposite. Yeah, certainly. And A.V. certainly hasn't adapted to that. scenario, which is bizarre, and I don't know if that's a, it's hard to say without being there. Like, is that an AV failure entirely? Is it a? It feels like the last two years that AV, and especially towards the end of Sathers tenure, that they weren't on the same page. If you,

I wrote a story about it last year, if you go back to the press conference that Glenn Sather gave after they traded for Keith Yandel, he says everything right. Keith Yandel is the type of missing piece that this team specifically needs. He can move the process. puck, he plays fast. The perfect fit for Elaine Vino's system. And it just feels like that A.V. didn't get the memo, maybe. You know, like, it just, management went out and acquired the perfect player for him.

He just didn't realize they did it. Almost as if A.V. tuned it out and wasn't listening to everything we were listening. I was sitting there and I said, you know, everything Glenn Sater says is right, it's a high price to give up. But if you extend Keith Yandel, it's a good trade, you know, it extends this team's window. He's the perfect missing piece. and it just seems like that the coaching staff never got the memo. Yeah.

It's weird to me. Like, I might be sort of a bit biased based on his time and Vancouver and the success he had with the Canucks. And I was watching that up close and personal. But like, even though Avey is your prototypical hockey guy and like he played in the league and, you know, he's been coaching for 20-something years all throughout the system. Like he's a hockey guy,

but he always seemed from what I've heard like open to more progressive stuff, right? Like with Mike Gillis, they were sort of the first guys to start like, actually like sheltering guys like Cody Hodson and giving them extreme offensive zone starts and doing things like that and all this stuff that definitely doesn't make you think he's sort of a Randy Carlisle type where like he's like I have to have Danger already playing this many minutes because you know he's reliable and does all this stuff like like but at the same time it's kind of hard to defend that after a certain point because he keeps going back to that same

well even though I feel like he's smart enough to realize that he shouldn't be doing that he just like it's like it's like it's like I was cryptonite he just can't my perception on AV has changed a ton in the last two seasons. Same year. And like especially like when I first saw that the Rangers hired him and got rid of John Tortorello. I was super excited. This is the best move the Rangers have made in two decades. And after the first season, I thought, well, this was the right hire for the right team.

It was a little bit of an older team, especially with some of the guys outgoing and some of the defensemen getting older. But I thought this was the perfect hire at the right time. He just, and I again, you know, I don't have much of a stake in this. but he almost keeps letting me down in terms of somebody that really thought that this was an amazing hire. And I just keep saying, you know, is this really a lame thing? You know, it doesn't seem to kind of add up. It's the guy that they went out in a car. But then you go back to Vancouver and it's all the same stuff now that they were writing about in Vancouver when you let go of him in Vancouver that they're writing about now.

And the sound bites, I mean, I don't know if they've changed or maybe we just never noticed. but like AV sound bites over the past year or year and a half like he's basically kind of disavowed stats like he'll say like oh we look at the numbers but then he doesn't know the numbers right so like I don't know it's just he's done like a like a heel turn yeah I think I think I think part of it is that the and I won't speak to Jeff Gordon's you know 10 year now as the gym but before that they and maybe the moves didn't sync up with it and do now but they didn't look at any of the advanced stats that were, that people are looking at, typically online and

and stuff that, you know, we're certainly using in the media more and more now. And that's just everything I've heard from, you know, people that are in the know that they weren't, at least two years ago, not putting a big stop in it, not looking into that. And maybe that's changed this offseason because it seems like they've really zeroed in on certain types of players, at least with their forward core. Right. In terms of guys that suppress shots a lot better that are really going to bolster their bottom six and bolster their penalty kill, which, again, those were areas that the team wasn't great with last year. And that's one thing.

But if you're going to kind of let everything else go to the wayside, it's not going to make a huge difference. So that we're not all doom and gloom here. I love the forwards they picked up for the bottom six. I hope they play them. I hope that they don't, you know. Right. And I mean, this has been a Jad Brissar trade. think was pretty universally agreed upon as a win for the Rangers.

That's a win, yeah. Got younger, pretty much similar for us. Richard will probably never hit 20 goals again. Last year was an aberration. I know, you know, I know some writers think that he could score 30, but when you're 30 years old and you've only scored 21. And he's a power play. He's a power play guy.

So, you know, you're going to get your points on the power play, and that's all well and good, but I'd rather take the 23-year-old to, you know. Score 20 goals that even strike. I think when old media guys also say, like, oh, this guy could score 30 goals, they don't actually realize how harder it is to score 30 goals. It's like legitimately like 30 or 35 guys actually score 30 goals. They're still thinking that 65 points is like, you know, what defines a good player. Right. Right.

But really, that's a great player. Yeah. If you're getting in the 60s, you're probably leading your team. I got nailed on Twitter because I was saying that I think Kevin Hayes could be a 60 point guy. And people rightfully so, I actually liked it. People jumped on me and said, dude, 60 points is a lot. of points. Yeah.

That's serious production. You're like 20 goals and 40 assists, like for a guy like Kevin Hayes maybe is like what you see. Yeah. Especially when you're not playing like 19, 20 minutes a night. If you're like playing like 16, 17, like that's very productive. And people jump on Chris Kreider and he's a first line player. The numbers tell you, he's a first line scoring talent.

And, you know, people say, well, he's a good second liner, I guess. And you're like, the guy scores 20 goals every year and gives you a positive impact at both things of the ice. Yeah, he's really physically gifted and you like really physically gifted guys to maybe score 30 goals and put up 60 or 70 points. But he's not that guy. He's not that type of guy. He doesn't have a great shot. He's not very offensively creative. I'm not sure he fully knows what to do when he doesn't have the puck on his stick or what he knows what to do when he does have the puck on his stick. No, he knows exactly what to do with the puck on his stick, which is beeline directly at the goalie and shoot it over him. Yeah. But I mean, but he's so physically gifted.

that just his ability to just bear down on guys and make it really hard for guys to get the puck out and win puck battles just by being such a physical presence. He's a clear top six player. He's probably a – he could be a first liner on a lot of teams. Right. You know, and he'll probably never be a 60-point guy. Right, and you're paying him like a second liner

through the rest of his prime season. So that was a great extension. Yeah, that's a good extension. That's what you should be doing. I think. Yeah. Well, I mean, just kind of spinning it forward, like, when you look at this team, I still think that with Lundquist, it's like, I was talking about this in the last podcast,

I was in Montreal, and I was talking to Andrew Berkshire, and we were talking about, like, there's so many head-scratching things going on with that organization, but Kerry Price is so good that it's like, it might not even matter, really. Like, it could mask so many of those flaws where he's going to steal them so many wins that they could still make the playoffs and everyone's going to be like, whoa. Right, they're a worse team than they were last year. I think right now, and they could finish with more points very easily, and it wouldn't surprise me at all. If you're getting like 65 stars out of Unquist, like, you know, a high number of them will be very, very high quality games.

And Rant is a really solid backup. Yeah. You know, I mean, look, you know, at some point, yeah, he's going to decline. Last year was not the year. People think last year was the year he started to decline and they thought the one series in the postseason was indicative of that. They're flat out wrong. The fact that he didn't get a Vesina vote is effing bonkers.

Because he kept the team afloat for huge portions of the season. He has one dip in November like he does every single year. I mean, is that as big of an indictment on general managers as almost anything in terms of talent evaluationally? You know, you always say, well, the general manager should be the smartest guy in the room and the fact that they just don't recognize the talent that Hunter Klunkwist has every single year. He was just as good as he was just as good as he always is.

If next year is the year that he starts to, quote, unquote, decline. Let's say that his usual 10 to 15 games swoon in November. And by swoon, I mean like he's an average NHL goalie for a span of time with some bad ones thrown in. Right. But if that swoon becomes 20 games, okay, then if the season is, if they lose the season, Like just things start to crumble around him, the defense and everything else. If he gets the blame, everybody is just out of their gourd, in my opinion.

Because, yeah, he is going to start declining at some point. But you're still going to be getting, as that decline is, he's not going to go off a cliff because he hasn't experienced a knee injury or hip injury or groin or something that's going to, you know. So barring some kind of catastrophic injury, the decline is going to be gradual. It's going to be like a Luongo decline where. But Jay, who's still one of the best Goalos is one of the best in the league. He's, you know, these guys are physical freaks

that can do it year after year. They are complete aberrations as far as goaltenders go. The Luongos and the Longquist. And that might be it. Those are like the two. You know, look, Kerry Price, knee injury. So who knows? His decline might start this coming season.

Right. You know, I have no idea what to expect. I think Montreal fans would be crazy not to expect that, some effects of it because he's a big guy with a knee injury. It's just, that's the kiss of death for goalies. But, like, Lundquist, in a decline mode, is not going to be the reason why this team, it shouldn't be the reason why this team struggles.

If that's what you're saying, if you're saying that's what's wrong with the team midway through the season, you're wrong. It's all the other stuff. And I think that a Lungwist, dip in production as small as a dip could be will probably be what cost Elaine Vino his job. Sure. Especially if it happens early on and they start off really long.

In November, if he's dipping in their, you know, four games out of a playoff spot, and I think that'll probably be where the whole team decides to go in a different direction. Hank makes a habit of starting off first eight to ten games, he's solid, solid, solid. They'll toss in a couple shutouts, so just be solid. And then all of a sudden he'll just like have a couple bad ones, like four bad ones. And then the backup, Talbot or now Ranta, they'll play three out of the next four. And people will go, what's wrong with Hank? Nothing's wrong with him.

He just, this is what he does. I'm glad you have never read one of those colleges. And then he'll come back in December and he'll be fine. And then they'll get through the Christmas break. And then January, February, March, he's insanely great. Transcendant. And that's what his seasons are. mostly the time. Yeah, I mean, that year they went to the cup.

His second half was as good as I've ever seen from a goalie. And his second half into the playoffs, I mean, he was just, I've never seen a more focus, more perfect goal-tending performance than that. In last season, he was like that up until like the last seven games of the season, six, seven games of the season. He had like a cup, like four out of seven were just, just bad, you know? And so everybody's like, uh-oh, uh, you know, look it happens and it's not like the team was performing

great in front of them they weren't performing well right so and I think that people like that people that would blame Lungquist are the type of people that you just can't even you can't even engage with or argue with because they're not coming from a rational place themselves yeah they're bad people they're the worst people they're the worst we should launch them into the sun

all right guys we've done 40 minutes here I think it's time to kind of wrap it up wow Nick are you are you gonna be presenting at the at the uh at the rochester i am i'm gonna be uh yeah i'll be at the okay plug it let's uh let's uh what is it so so the rit hockey analytics conference is the weekend of september 9th 10th 11th right um i should know that and i'll be there but i don't know when it is i'll be there i'll be one of the presenters along with a whole slew of other um you know folks with um people who have never written bad stuff

about henriklinquist like that's right The people that are always, yeah, good people. Yeah, good people. Yeah, good folks with good morals that love Henrik Lundquist. So I'll be doing a presentation on Goli's. I'm going through this like Micah, Blake McCurdy has got me going through this like personal, I don't even know what to call it. Continuous and discrete data, he's just made me lose my mind.

Binning. Micah's like, he's so math smart. that when he questioned something, then you start to question it, and then you just unravel. And that's what I'm going through right now, where I'm like, everything I'm doing is just flat out wrong, and I need to change all of it. And he's like, no, Nick, don't do that. Don't do that for me. And I'm like, no, I need to do it now. I need to change it all. That's what I, if I could very quickly close to this, that's what I love about you numbers guys, is that like every six months, I'm like, wait, everything I thought was wrong? What have I been looking at? And then it's so stressful.

Because, like, I don't, I'm not developing any sort of formulas or anything myself. I'm just reading all of your conclusions. I mean, like, that's so smart. And then, like, wait, was that so, you know, you guys just have me constantly questioning everything, which I love. And, like, you know, I love to constantly be challenged. Right. Yeah. And Mike is like, well, I want to start focusing on goalie.

So we've been chatting about all this different stuff. And I'm like, man, I'm just a lawyer. I'm just a simple lawyer with a little bit of math knowledge. And a hockey grapst writer. Well, quote unquote, air quotes, hockey grass writer. So, yeah, so I'll be at RIT hockey conference. There's going to be a lot of smart people like Micah. Are you going to be there?

I'm going to try to be there. Awesome. Are you going to be there? I'm not going to be there. Bummer. I have an engagement party that weekend. My own engagement party. Oh, that's a pretty good reason.

Yeah, that's a good reason. Fair enough. But I will be on Twitter. You can just follow in me and said I'll be following along. Where can people tweet at you? People can tweet in me or send me money via Venmo at Patrick Cairns. Patrick Cairns. That's it.

Send me all your money. Yeah. And Nick, where can people find you? N Mercad, N-M-E-R-C-A-D, like the stat. Cool. Well, guys, thanks for taking the time. And we're signing out from lovely Queens, New York. Thanks for having me.

The Hockey P-D-O cast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at SoundCloud.com. slash Hockey PDOCast.