The Hockey PDOcast - Everything We Saw in Game 1 of the West Final

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Sean Shapiro to get into everything they saw from Game 1 of the Western Conference Final. 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.

since 2015. It's the Hockey P.D.O.cast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name's Dmitra Filippovich. And joining me as my good buddy, Sean, what's going on? Man, it's been a while. It has been a man, man. It's been, but I'm good, though. I'm happy to be here. I am happy to be talking hockey with you. I'm happy that you have some of my fellow writers from the Dallas adjacent market have filled in well in Robert and David. So I'm glad I'm still allowed in the rotation. So I'm happy to be here. You're certainly in the rotation.

We actually mix in David Castillo and Robert Diffin. But listen, the stars are in the Western Conference final yet again for the third straight year. And so we got to have you back on. I know they've been infringing on your corner a little bit lately. So we need to remind them that this is your terrain. Certainly, we're going to break down game one. Oh, boss, nice, West final, get into all the stuff we saw, how it played out, the takeaways, moving forward, looking ahead to game two, all that sort of stuff.

I mean, let's start with this. this series is going to absolutely rock. I mean, last year's was really fun. It went six games. It was highly competitive. The Oilers wound up winning. If game one is any indication, especially the first period I thought was incredible.

I had scoring chances. I'm tracking all these manually just to see how they stack up to the public data. There were 21 combined shots on goal in the first 20 minutes. There were 19 scoring chances between the stars and the Oilers to put that number into perspective in terms of how high event it was and the quality of the year. offense. The entire game one of the East Final between the Hurricanes and the Panthers had 24 scoring chances in it. So nearly matched that in just one period of hockey here. It was back and forth. It was exciting. It was also, you know, this game one was really a tale of two games, right?

You can kind of break it down. We could almost do an entirely different show through the first 40 minutes and then do a separate one just for the third period based on how it played out. And so it was high theater. There's so much for us to break down. Just get into it. yeah let's do it it was definitely fun it was it was i'll let you let you run lead though it's your show well here's the thing so this you know the first period was pretty even it comes out one-one the second period was all oilers right the scoring chances were nine two for them they score a pair of goals 100 seconds apart uh later on nurse rings one off the bar after hymen had done so himself earlier special teams battle in particular that was like a big talking point for me here as i was

writing real time notes because it was a bit of a continuation of last year's West final between these two teams where the stars went 0 for 14 got outscored 1-0 on the power play the oilers went four for 11 on their part and through the first two periods here ran into the hopkins scores 25 seconds into the oilers power play opportunity after mason marchments seventh minor penalty in just 14 games this postseason whereas the stars had about three minutes of power play time were never really able to get set up in the zone. And then the game just completely flipped in the third. The narrative did as well when the stars just go on this powerplay barrage.

They score three power play goals to make a four or three in five, 26 of game time. And here's the remarkable thing. That's not even the craziest third period powerplay barrage by Pete DeBore coach team because we had that four power play goals in four minutes of time, essentially. Outburst in game seven of 2019, a sequence that changed. the rulebook for the NHL and allowed them to make major penalties. And so, I mean, it was pretty incredible. It's not necessarily, it's new for this series and for this matchup because of what I just

said about last year's meeting between these two teams, but it was a continuation for the stars of their special teams dominance throughout this postseason. We've talked a lot about how that unit and Jake Odinger have really carried them despite pretty underwhelming five-on-five results for the most part. And so in that sense, it feels like the way this game played out was pretty on brand. this 2025 stars team. Yeah, it's a stars team where they've been getting the job done, right? This is their ninth playoff when they've been getting the job done.

They're into round three for the third straight year. And throughout this whole process, have you ever in any of the series or any of the games, have you ever really gone and said, if you were to just, if you were to turn off the scoreboard and someone was to randomly watch and you told them they weren't allowed to count goals, you'd be like, which team won this game based off just your quick view of the game. And it was another game like that where the stars have found this way to arrive and seize those big moments, the third period like they did last night. Miko ran in doing what he did earlier in the postseason in the third period.

And it's, you're not, you're not supposed to be what I think it's, they've now trailed in 12 of their 15 playoff games, I think it is. Like you're not supposed to be like you're not supposed to get 15 playoff games if you've trailed 12 of them already. That's that goes completely against conventional thinking. So I it's kind of one of those like spots where you give Dallas credit for what they've done and everything. At the same time, it's kind of, it's kind of funny. You can almost only laugh at it at how much they've put themselves in this spot over and over again and how much other teams have put themselves in the spot. Because Edmonton should have won last night, right? Like, it's, I watched this game a little bit on a tape delay.

I watched the first two periods, then went and had, went and played my beer league game with our pal Max Bolton. And it's a 3-1 game when I'm walking into the locker room for our beer league game. And I walk out and it's six three Dallas afterwards. It's, and then I went home and rewatch the tape on it. But it's, this is a stars team that the book seems to be just do enough, aka, thank Jake Ottinger enough to get you to the spot where you can make those third period plays. and it's been working. They won nine games in the playoffs.

So that's, it's not supposed to work this way, but it has so far. Yeah, I mean, I think they were saying on the broadcast, they are four and four now

in games this postseason when they were trailing, getting into the third period. This was obviously the fourth, third period comeback. So it's a pretty remarkable style. Let's go through those three power play goals because the first two especially came

with the second unit, right? And I did this series preview a couple days ago with Jack Conn, and he was kind of noting because of just the embarrassment of riches, the Stars have up front in particular. It's very unconventional in the fact that

the first unit is certainly, I think, more dangerous because of what Miko Randon has unlocked for them. But you're in the situation where you have a second unit on the Stars team that has Meryl Hayeskin who came back, quarterbacking it, and then you've got guys like Tyler Sagan, Jason Robertson's screening,

Michael Granlin with the shot he had. And so it's a pretty remarkable second unit. They score the first two goals in that third period. The first one was, you know, Marchman screening, kind of a seemingly harmless mirror Hayeskin endpoint shot that finds its way through. The second one was interesting to me because it was a very nice Jason Robertson flash screen that really seemed to bug Stuart Skinner and then Michael Granland ripped it. And it went in and out so quickly and it was such a perfectly placed shot that seemingly no one was sure that it was actually a goal.

I think the officials on the ice at the time even kind of waved it off because they thought it might have just been the crossbar and so on the commentary in the broadcast. You had this like delay where everyone's unsure of what's happening. It's like a two-second stretch where there's just a pause and then all of a sudden a delayed celebration, but it was another big goal for Michael Granland here. And then the third one, Matt Dushain draws the high stick on Evander Cain. Anyone who's listened to this show so far this postseason

has heard me express my frustration about these playoff broadcasts and the replays they're showing us because they're always kind of like either slow or not actually showing what we want to see you're just showing the wrong replays. They did that on the Canadian broadcast here, where they show, like, the last couple seconds of the play, and it looks like it's not a high stick, and Matthew Shane is kind of swinging his head back,

trying to sell it. And then later on, you actually, I think on the ESPN broadcast, they did show the replay where Evander Cain's stick actually does come up and hit him. But then a couple seconds later, Matthew Shane winds up scoring, and it was a hilarious play where I tweeted this,

you know, ranten and shoots it. It comes behind the net. Stewart's going to lose his track of it and can't recover. kind of doesn't know where it is. And all of a sudden, Rupa Hintz is just laying sprawled out in the crease. Matthew Sheen shoots it off his kidneys, essentially. He uses him as a backboard, which is quite a creative way to get Rupa Hintz, a primary assist there. And then Matt Dushain gets the rebound.

And I actually think this was first, Matt Dushan's first goal of the postseason. I think he actually needed that Rupé Hince backboard because it looked like he was going to miss that first attempt. And it probably would have killed that sequence. It winds up being his first goal of the playoffs, and it was a huge one. And so, yeah, there was all sorts of stuff to unpack there from those three power play goals. You don't think they run the kidney, shoot off the kidney play in practice. You don't think that at the practice during these these hidden practices that, because the stars always talk, the stars must have hidden practices because throughout the playoffs,

they kept talking about how Mira will come back and he's got to get through contact at practice. Well, I haven't seen an NHL team have contact at practice in the playoffs in years. and so apparently Miro got through the contact and practice. So those contact practices that Miro got through must be the ones where Rope-A lays on the side of the net so Madhu-Shane can practice the kidney backboard play because it's definitely right out of the playbook. I can't say anything else, right? Yeah, that was a huge sequence for Matt D'Shaen.

I've been pretty critical of both his productions. Yes, yes, it was. And, you know, Jack Han was noting that he's been contributing and doing stuff beyond the score sheet, but they clearly needed both him and see again. to break through and score and in a game where, you know, as we look ahead to game two, and I'm sure a prevailing theme is going to be, there's so much to like from the Oilers 5-on-5 in this game. If they're just a bit more disciplined and they don't have this third period outburst

than the power play from the Stars, they're going to be in a good spot to make this 1-1 heading back to Edmonton. I think that's completely right. I'd also say, though, that, you know, it was a pretty quiet game from the Stars top forwards, especially guys like Ranton and Wyatt Johnston and Robertson, and there's probably more untapped potential there. And so in a game like that,

this vaunted star's depth that we've talked about that hasn't really actually materialized this postseason for them to come through and help them win this game, I think was a massive development. If you're going to win a Stanley Cup,

you certainly need that. It's great. The Ranton's had these crazy scoring outbursts and has been carrying the team offensively, but you actually do need guys like this to step up and put the puck in the net,

and so that's exactly what they got here. Yeah, and I, I listened back to the show you did it with Jack. It's great show. It's still relevant. People should still go listen to it if they haven't. And I heard what he said about Dushain and how I hear his point a little bit about how, hey, Dushain is played better by his eyes and he was doing things.

But at the end of the day, D'Shain hadn't been good. Like, he's got to be, he can't just be doing things that are good for the overall play. He's got to be finding ways to add things productively. offensively. So that was huge, right? Like I think coming into the game, and I know when they're leading into the broadcast, the U.S. broadcast last night with Matt Dushain being minus nine already, like when you're front and center as the problem child for what's happening with the stars offense, why things aren't working, why they might not win. It's big to get this. And I know it's a wonky one. It's a weird one. But it's also a guy who has been, and I've spoken to Dushain about this quite a bit now myself. And, you know, I know he's opened up about it with others as well, where, like, this is a guy who he deals, he, he, he's open about the ups and downs of playoff hockey, but he went through a lot of the emotional lows of the playoffs last year and then really kind of got his game on track after sitting down on the eve of, uh, game six against Colorado last season. He had a, uh, he sat down

with, uh, stars assistant coach Misa Donskove and had the whole kind of like, that's when, for whatever reason, that's when getting bought out by Nashville really got to him. So he's a guy who he deals with the emotional ebbs and flows of the playoffs. He's an open human being about it. And I think there's times where a goal like that, where a bounce or break goes your way, even if you help create it yourself, it can go a long way in the human element of it. I think that's one of the things we often talk about X's and O's and how this team works, how that team works.

But I think there is that human element in the playoffs here where, for Dushan getting that goal, it moves things in the right way for him. For the stars, all of a sudden, it's like, okay, something's going to start going our way.

This is a team that's had, what, five goals scored on Jake Onger that have been either shot in by their own team or bounced off their own guy. So, like,

I think that's a really big goal from a momentum, emotional standpoint for both an individual player and a team, because I don't think the stars are going to be able to win this series if they don't get those,

that depth score. and they don't get the goals from the guys like the the marchments the say the the the sayans the the johnstons they that has to happen and it's like it can't just be finn's scoring goals that's let's put it that way you know who has stepped up though sam steele i thought he was awesome yeah again in this one that sequence when it's four three late in the third i believe that lines out there for like 30 to 40 seconds at the time they ice the puck the oilers come back and bring out dry sidel and mac david for an offensive zone draw and you're thinking, oh, oh, and then all of a sudden they're able to get it out. Eventually, Sam Steele gets it, brings it in off the rush, goes inside on the backhand,

say again, tucks it in, or tips it in past Skinner. The school of Povelski would be proud after that hand-eyed display. And, you know, for all this talk about some of those guys lacking behind offensively beyond the top line, you look up and Sam Steele is actually second on the Stars team this postseason in 5-on-5 points. He was playing with Sagan and Marchman on a new look forward line for them in this one after they went back to the conventional 12 and 6 after easing Miro back in with three games of 11 and 7. And, you know, even on the penalty kill, Loyalers had a powerplay opportunity down

just one at the time about halfway through the third. There's a sequence where Steele's kind of pressuring McDavid, making life difficult for them. eventually they get the puck deep. He kills some time deep in the oiler zone. I thought he was awesome in this game. And he's been giving them, you know, some picking up some of that slack while the other guys have been lacking.

And so I thought he was awesome. I thought, say again, I mean, this was a much needed game for him as well, right? He hadn't scored a goal since game three overtime winner against Colorado in round one. He hadn't been on the ice for a star's five-on-five goals since game five of that series. He scores two here as an assist, leads a team with seven shots. I thought he looked. 10 years younger than he actually is flying in on that breakaway and finishing it past Skinner. I thought he was awesome and had so much needed jump.

And so I thought that was a huge development for the stars as well. His first breakaway goal since November 11th, actually. And it was the, like I think he had had some, I saw that he had only three breakways between November 11th and game one last night. And obviously that includes missing from all of December or through April with the hip surgery. but you talk about vintage Sagan, that's one of those plays where, obviously, I've covered the stars for a long time.

That's one of those plays where you kind of expected to see something like that from him every other game or so early in his career. And then between the Achilles in 2018, between him wrecking his body and the bubble in 2020, between this hip, like, he's the guy who you're like,

this is, he's never going to be that guy. And again, like, you're like, those physical tools that help to the speed, the shot combination there. You're like, that's probably in his past. So it brings a, I don't know,

it brings a smile, it fills your heart, whatever term you want to use as someone who watched that version of, of Tyler earlier in his career, to see it kind of come back a little bit on that play. Like the whole, and it was almost, and I can't help but wonder if it's the,

maybe it's blowing past John Klingberg. It's the, it's a, bit of the old, blowing past the old friend. It's like old times around the ice again, but he forgot that they're on the same team, that they're on the same team. Like, there's something about that play where this is not Tyler Sagan's norm anymore. And he made it the norm last night.

And that's, that's really good. I don't know how well sustainable that is. I don't know how long it goes. Tyler's game to game prep right now is not easy. And I know that for a fact. So I'm fascinated to see how he looks in game too. But for one night only at least, that's like, he was good in game. seven. Sorry, yeah, game, uh, game, game six. Yeah, he set up the heart. He set up the overtime winner. Yeah. So he was, he was good in that too. And that was, I know there was, I talked to someone from Dallas about that who they said one of the benefits of the stars winning game six, obviously in addition to not having to play game seven was they were happy about being able to get some of those guys like Sagan a couple days off and everything like that. So, um, I'd really like to see. I, I, I'd hope just from a hockey fan perspective. And I'd love to see that version again of Sagan in game.

So I'm hoping today goes really well for the recovery on that because that's a vintage Tyler Sagan that we used to see, used to be really entertaining, and then we got again last night. You know, on that 5-3 goal, I also wanted a shout out as Lendell. I thought he made a really important play there, kind of preventing the puck from getting deep in the zone of the blue line. Yep. Had Hyman and McDavid kind of bearing down on him looking to attack and create an on-man rush. And I thought it was fitting then that he got the 6-3-empty netter to essentially seal the game from the defensive zone. Listen, his favorite play. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's his own, that's his own faceoff dot.

Like, that's, that's, that's his favorite play. So that's, I don't think anyone draws up their offense better from 170 feet than Essel andel endell. Well, listen, it's well documented at this point. He certainly can't prepare a stake, but man, can he ever kill a play? And, uh, and, uh, and he came through there. Before we move on, like, while we're just on the topic of the, the special teams angle, I thought the power play dynamic is really interesting on the, the other side here because we spoke a lot about how this star's PK has made really nice adjustments as the postseason has progressed depending on the opponent and in round two they gave

the Jets power play that had been so good previously a lot of trouble just entering the zone and getting set up and I think it was a quick reminder that this is just going to be an entirely different ball game there because on the two oilers power play opportunities and they scored on one of them you can just see how relative to everyone else they get set up so easily and it's just essentially McDavid pushing everyone back. Drexedo kind of standing as the anchor, the blue line, he gives it to him, and then they can just run that give and go, and they're off and running. They use that to create the R&H goal.

On the second powerplay opportunity, McDavid got a little mini break off of it that, uh, that Archer was able to stop. And so I'm curious to see, you know, once the stars go back into the film room and kind of try to prepare for this, not that it's a new revelation dealing with the oilers powerway, because they've been doing this for so long, but just what they do there and kind of how you adjust to that. You want to talk a little bit about Audinger here? We're actually real quick on the penalty kill.

There's something for me that was interesting about last night too was the stars by their deployment seemed to. And so when they go back from the 11-7 to the 12-6, they bring Oscar Beck back into the lineup. And Oscar Beck ends up becoming their most used forward on the penalty kill. And they basically just cut down the usage of Johnston and hints on the penalty kill. and that's interesting to me because it's almost like the stars are at the spot where just kind of from a tactile using and trying to build minutes and move things around, it almost felt to me like you're going to try to, you're trying to focus Wyatt Johnston on more of getting those five-on-five matchups. And we kind of accept that. So I know a lot of it going back to the 12-6

was to kind of get to a more traditional six defenders, get back to get away from the awkwardness of having to shuffle seven defenders. But I think there's something notable there about the stars bringing back back in, just because he basically came in just to take away minutes from other guys on the penalty goal. We only played like four or five minutes, even strength,

played three minutes on short-handed. And it seems to be a choice the stars are making where we're going to, we know how the Oilers are going to put us in the defensive zone right away on the penalty kill. It's not that they're conceding the entry, but let's go with the bigger body dude, have that, and then kind of save Wyatt Johnston,

save Rope Hintz's defensive matchup minutes more for five on five, which is an interesting thing I'm really looking to kind of track and watching game too to see how the stars kind of use that. That's just, I wanted to add that about the penalty kill there. I think that's a really good note. I mean, even in this one, and I imagine part of it is that logic. I think, you know, he only had a couple shot attempts.

Didn't have a point in this game, but getting more offense out of Yad Johnson because so much was made of the matchup role he was playing 5-1-5 through the first two series, right, kind of chasing McKinnon around, getting matched up against Shifley and Connor in round two. And in this one with last change at home, and, you know, this is kind of a bit more complicated because as the game went along right off of a lot of these penalty kill situations, the first shift back, though. It was just load up McDavid and Dry Seidel late in the game when they were down one and pushing for the tying goal.

They put those guys back together. So the minutes are mixed up a little bit, but especially early on, you saw right off the opening draw, right? The stars were going with Hayskin and Harley and then the Ranton and Hins, Granlin, top line against McDavid. And they were going for that matchup instead and kind of freeing up Johnston, I think, with these new look lines

to have somewhat softer minutes. he still winds up playing quite a bit against Rice Seidel here. But they're going to need more offense from him certainly. And I think one way to do that is just to make sure that he's not spending all of his energy chasing around McDavid. And so I'm kind of curious to track that as this series develops as well. And I think having a guy back in there to just soak up him and steal some of those PK minutes probably makes it easier for Pete DeBore to do so. Yeah, for sure. It's one of those things that when I rewatch back parts of the game this morning,

and it just kind of made the note of it where it's like, because if you look at five on five, you're like, okay, why do they bring in a Beck versus a column Blackwell or something like that? You're just like, you're just like, because the next day you're always trying to see

and try to figure out, get into the coach's mind, and then you kind of look at that penalty kill usage. It's like, okay, that's something there. That's something that is kind of now my notebook for game two as we go forward here. I think that's a great shot.

On Andre. So he's still yet to give up a goal, against this post season from above the face off circles from far out. He gives up three in this one. They were all pretty good chances by good shooters. He got the benefit of a couple posts as well, as I mentioned, off of Nurse and in Hyman. But one thing that really stood out to me in this game, and I really want to dig into this with you, is I thought he did a really good job of managing the rebounds.

He was either catching them and getting defensive zone draws or just sort of with his blocker, kind of steering it out of danger, sending it into the corner. allowing the stars to get back into their defensive set. And it helps a little bit when, especially early on, some of these point shots from the Oilers, we're just getting fully absorbed by Oilers forwards out in front, who were just taking the brunt of them.

And we saw they kind of drop a couple of them. But I know that you wrote a really fun piece on your substack about this this week. And I thought that would make a good topic for us to get into because, you know, it was great. I highly recommend everyone reads it. Yet at the same time, I felt like it was really in service for an, audience of one and that one being me because I've been just talked about it all season all both

season I've been obsessed with it. The Oilers, if you go back and watch those first two rounds, we're just terrorizing Darcy Kemper and Aden Hill in large part because of their ability to do exactly that, right? They're kind of vulnerable to some of this chaos in front. They were just kind of funnel pucks towards the net and then just whack away at loose pucks with a stick and get a bunch of rebound opportunities and punish them doing so. And so we'll see if that's able to continue as this series progresses, but I feel like that's going to be a massive storyline here. The Oilers are going to get their looks kind of outright regardless, but just managing some of those sequences where there's a second, third opportunity is going

to be massive. And it does feel like, at least what we've seen so far, that Odinger is probably better suited to manage that than the two goalies that the Oilers faced previously. Yeah. And now I had at least four or five other people reach out to me after that piece around this week on goalies and the lost art of catching pucks who said, I think you really only wrote this for me. So it's like seven or eight audiences of one. So I'm glad that I'm glad that I can cater exactly to the half dozen people that enjoyed that topic. Yeah, it's something that kind of stood out to me. It's something that was kind of fresh in mind for me kind of watching, because obviously I watched the Dallas Women to Pick series up close. And what's one of the

things on Connor Hellebuck. Conner Hellebuck doesn't really have active hands. Connor Hellebuck's hands aren't. And so because when you hear Connor Ellibuck's hands aren't active and they aren't, you intentionally watch, okay, how is Jake Onged? You're different. And one of the things that Jake does really well is he catches pucks in a very old school style, right?

The more traditional, there's a lot more of the watching the puck into the glove, a lot of the traditional snap. He catches, he catches a puck a lot more like a baseball player than a lot of NHL goalies now where you see the wrist twists and the air of the scoop motion that you see on every single shot. And as much as as fun as windmills are, right?

Like the excessive windmilling isn't actually, it can actually be a bad thing when that's how you're trying to catch as opposed to just watching it right into the pocket. And Jake watches into the pocket better than most goalies. And our pal, Robert, and I guess you should have him back on the show now because he's helping me with my work. But Robert, Robert,

chatted with Jake for me about how one of the things that Jake, one of the reasons that Jake catches puck so well is he doesn't use the, he doesn't use like the practice glove, right? For the quick 30 second refresher, NHL, most

NHL goalies use these thick, extra padded practice gloves, which are more difficult to close and they keep your palm healthier and safer and all that stuff. But they create practice habits where instead of catching pucks, you're more of just trying to trap them and do a wrist curl or anything like that. Jake does not use a practice glove. He basically turns his game glove into a practice glove and just keeps, and that's the power of being an

NHL goalie. And one of the guys, Bauer really wants to make one of the faces of their company. So you can get a lot of gloves that way. So it's, so Jake catches pucks a lot that way. And he is able to, and I think we saw that in this game. There's a lot of times where there was stretches and plays where Edmonton created rebounds, created chances that an Aden Hill or Darcy Kemper gave right back for the guys crashing the net. And Jake did a really good job controlling those. And as the game kind of evolves, I saw more instances where it's not just the glove and it's not just the holding the rebounds with the glove. There's also just the smart placement and deployment. I like the way that one of the things Atenger does really well, as you kind of mentioned with the blocker is he does a

a really good job. And I think it's partially because he trusts his depth and his net, where he has that millisecond. And it really is just a millisecond to read where you're, it's not to, to kind of think about step two after the safe, where it's the shot blocker side. It's the, is it a, punch to the right side? Is it a deflection to the right side? Is it trying to get it up high into the netting? Is it maybe there are times where sometimes the clean punch back can, can, can be the right, rebound control. And that's one of the reasons Ottinger's rebound control is, like, I think MoneyPucket does like the rebounds per shot.

And Jake's always really high up there for Bunks of the Best in the league on that. And I think the Oilers are, one of the chess matches of this, this is the Oilers are going to realize rather quickly that Jake Ottinger is playing better than he was last year in the Western Conference final. And that if they're going to score, it's going to be, it's going to be more about that pre-shot chaos. It's not going to be getting the rebounds. It's not going to be that. It's going to be what Zach Hyman does on the first dry-sidal goal last night, where he goes and the kind of the flash screens, the moving before Dry-Sidal comes in. I think that's one of the chess matches here of this

where I think maybe we might see Edmonton take less shots, quote-unquote, as we go forward, but they might have become better scoring chances because there's chances in times where they released the puck and took shots in this game where those were good chances against Aiden Hill. were good chances against Darcy Kemper and they're not good chances against Jake Ottinger. I'd love to know you had in there about beyond just the technical side of the actual equipment, just sort of the preparation for some of these guys in terms of, you know, we speak a lot about, um, I guess the over specialization of the young age for players and how cookie cutter everything is and, uh, the lack of cross sport training for the most part

and kind of how that applies to this in terms of the actual technique. And so yeah, I mean, that's going to be a massive part. of this series, right? Because the Oilers has been so good 5-1-5 at creating that chaos and especially, you know, the agenda is very clear for everyone. But when you come to the NHL postseason with crashing the net and again, set defenses, trying to just kind of muck it up a little bit and generate a lot of scoring chances through some of those rebounds. And they've excelled at that. And so the ability to kind of manage that is going to be massive here. And I thought, you know, did about as well as you could ask for in game one. It's going to be, especially as the Oilers adjust, we'll see how that goes from games two to seven. But it was a good start for him for sure.

All right. You got any other notes on Audenger, the goaltending, or do you want to take our break here? No, let's, I mean, the one thing I will say, and maybe we'll talk about Skinner a little bit later, but it was just, and I intentionally screen grabbed the moment on the, on the Schenner, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on one end, we have Jake Ottinger looking really calm and composed and controlling his rebounds, and then we have, I don't know if you saw this, the Skinner, Skinner with his hands out and just like the thousand foot

stare after the Duchenne goal. It was like it was two different, um, temperaments and goalies in the third period there. That was pretty notable to me. And I think that's something that it's going to be really interesting to play throughout the rest of the series just because of, especially with right now the oilers,

I mean, with, with, with, without Calvin Pickard there to be a threat to actually play and everything like that. And I don't really know the full extent of his injury. but it's something that seems to me

could be a foundational piece for both teams, especially in those tense moments going forward. Even with, and give Skinner credit for what he did against Vegas, but just it just seemed to me something that kind of came up last night. Yeah, on that Duchesne goal,

I mean, part of it was he lost track of the puck and then got twisted around and like spun around and wasn't able to recover. But yeah, it was a pretty long period of time where Deshaid, as we said, was able to get a first crack at it, hit it off hints and then still have an open net to shoot at after that. So certainly not ideal for Skinner.

All right, let's take our break here. And then we come back. We'll jump right back in where we're going to close out the conversation on game one of the West final. You're listening to the Hockey P.D.O.cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right. We're back here on the Hockey Ptodepio cast, joined by Sean Schia. Let's get into the first 40 minutes we're mentioning the oil of success and how you got to feel good about what you're able to generate there.

I know they ultimately blew this one. I thought McDavid and Dreis Seidel were, as advertised, awesome. In this game, they combined for 15 shots or 15 shot attempts, created all three of the Oilers' goals. Early on you had McDavid just dropping Lundell on his way to the net in the second period, just as impressively, I thought. Harley's managing his gap well, and then all of a sudden quickly is reminded that there's fast,

and then there's Connor McDavid. I think the broadcast was saying he was skating about like 25 miles per hour on that rush. mentioned earlier kind of how the start or how the oilers load them up for shifts after the penalty kill and then the third when they were trailing um you know the first goal dry siddle going outside inside on wide johnston and just releasing it in one motion with virtually no backswing on that shot was incredibly cool the the the puck protection really stood out to me cycling kind of high in the zone now it's it's there's a risk reward there right because that's how they create the first goal some of those little exchanges that cause miscommunication and the coverage as our pal jennel icon noted on Twitter though on the one one goal what the stars do is is utilizing their wingers and kind of the zone coverage especially when the puck's brought up high they're looking to force to turn over there and then and then get out and jump out and transition and that's exactly what they did resulting in that say again breakaway um I thought to my eye you know I watched the full round two against Vegas of course tricyt got the job done especially defensively in the final

couple of games against Ico but he wasn't moving nearly the same and then maybe it was just the of having some extra time off because they finished that series off early, I thought his pace in this one was much better. And so that's really encouraging for the Oilers. You got any notes on kind of them and what you saw from them or how the stars are going to try to combat it and defend it? Because I thought in round one against McKinnon and Macar, I thought the stars did a really good job as that series progressed

of making the necessary adjustments to kind of tamp things down a little bit then corral the speed better than they did early in that series. Obviously, there were games four and six in that one where they failed to do so, and the abs just unleashed on them offensively. But if anyone can kind of micromanage their way towards defending as well as you can ask for, it's probably the Starr's team. I'm curious to see what they do with the matchups and the personnel, because there was a ton, as you'd expect, of Mero and Lundell against them in this one.

And I imagine that'll continue, but I'm curious to see what they do with the forward matchups kind of who they prefer to have out there against those guys, especially while they're split up early in these games. Yeah, we talked about kind of the Oilers adjusting to realizing Jake Ottinger is a, is going to catch those pucks that Aden Hill wasn't. And I think there's going to be a bit of a stars adjustment here where it's, it's silly to be like anyone underestimates Connor McDavid. But the fact of the matter is in that first round, Cody Cici and Nessel and Dell did much better against Nathan McKinnon than I think anyone expected, right? I think in round one give Lindell and Cici credit for what they did against McKinnon. And I think there's times where, especially in this game one,

it'll be interesting to see how the stars adjust where McKinnon seeks a little bit more of that contact. And like so on that, a couple of those plays where McDavid is just Connor McDavid fast and the one where he turns Lindell into a pretzel and everything like that, that's one of those plays where McKinnon probably seeks a little bit of the contact. and I think Lendell had Lendell was a little bit more used to that. He kind of tried to play McDavid there the way he played against McKinnon in round one.

And I'm interested to see how that kind of evolves of giving, realizing that McDavid is not going to seek contact the way McKinnon does and everything like that. That's one thing I'm really interested to watch kind of that other part of this chess match and this tit-for-tat move of the playoffs. The other thing that I found kind of interesting,

about, I think on the flip side, I think dry-sidal, there's ways where I think dry-sidal can be a little bit more creative and be a little bit more effective because the stars don't have a setter that dominates the middle of the ice the way Jack Eichael did, right? Like there's part of when dry-sidels getting that job against Eichael and everything like that, his job is to kind of win that middle battle of the ice. And when you talk about the stars players that work, with the puck off their stick, you're talking more about wingers. You're talking more about, like, if it's going to be dry-sidal against Rannin, or if you're going to try to get that line matchup, Randon works down that wall more. He doesn't really cut to the middle. He does touch the middle a little bit, but he's more of a,

of sticky to his side here. And so I think from dry-sidels, offensive perspective, I think there was kind of a breath of fresh air of not having to worry about controlling and worrying about the middle lane attack that he dealt with Igel, the entire last round. So I think that might be. part of it with dry-siddle just to having a little bit of that matchup sets up a little bit better

for him offensively and then to take it going the other way. So it's, it all adds into that, like I got that long list of little things to watch on a shift-to-shift basis. And now it's with dry-siddle without having a kind of a quote-unquote pure superstar center on the other side. And it's one of those things. And that's nothing against Rope hands. I just Rope doesn't do it on a consistent. There's games where Rope is the best player on the planet and there's games where he's quiet. Michael is pretty consistent across the board. And so I'm interested to watch that with Drysettle because he was

really good last night, but then there was also a couple ways where you saw ironically enough, I think both Sagan goals, one is the breakaway, obviously there's the turnover, the stars get the little bump and then they go. And then the other one where he actually gets the stick lift on Sagan before that tip, but he's almost, it's, and I realize there's not much more you can do, but there's the bad screen grab of him turning up to go

offensively the other way, while Sagan's tipping the puck into the net. And so I think that's an interesting kind of battle to watch play out and how that all goes because it's, dry settle is going to be a problem for Dallas this series. I think he's going to score every game. I think it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, is, base to create, right?

One of the issues, there's no necessarily right way to defend McDavid, but what this star's team has done this postseason is much more, akin to an absorbed defense of kind of like letting you come to them and and sagging back and bending but not breaking and that's really difficult to do because against McDavid because all of a sudden you're just giving him more room to to build up speed and then at that point good luck trying to to stay in front of them I thought Joyce had a ton of scoring chances in this one you know the one Meryl Hayes can in in this game he gets the couple power play or he gets the goal and the power play assist.

His numbers on natural statrick don't look good in this one. I think he had like a 25% expected goal share in the minutes against McDavid. I thought he made that one phenomenal defensive play in the third period one-on-one against Rice-Sidal where he kind of poked it away from him while he was doing his weaving act and then set up the Lee Ambitial chance or the rush chance, which has to be, you know, very low probability in terms of things I'd expect. It's like, oh, Liam Bishop, just leading the break and getting a look out front.

And I think everyone involved, including himself, was pretty surprised that it played out that way. But that was kick-started by a really nice defensive play by Hayskin. And I thought that the Stars D struggled quite a bit against the Oilers forecheck in this one, in particularly Harley, with some of the retrievals. And that's why I'm kind of curious to see as this postseason progresses, you mentioned the success that Lindell and C.C. had as a shutdown pair early on and playing Hayskin and Harley together, I'm curious to see how that continues. and if they split those guys up

and whether that that pays dividends for them because, you know, as I mentioned with Harley, especially on a couple of the retrievals where you'd go back and get badgered into a mistake and then that would fuel some of those in tight chances for the oilers and if not that, at least offensive zone possession time. And so they'd certainly need to be better at that. And I think that was a big reason why the Oilers were having

a lot of the success they were in the first 40 minutes. I think one of the differences between, you're right about the Oilers, forecheck kind of badgering the stars defense the entire time. I think one of the things about Harley that is it's not a knock on his game.

I think he's a great defenseman and obviously he's been really good this year and everything like that. But I think one of the things about him that, and I know the stars have spoken with him about trying to kind of get this part a little bit into his game is once you're badgered and once you've been

bothered, it's that first step back defensively and it's something that Lindell does really well, it's something that Heskinin does really well and it's something that the stars have talked to Harley. I've also talked to Bischel about it too. I've talked to Liam Bischel about it too where he's, there's been a big internal discussion of once it's, you don't want to lose that

foreshack battle, you don't want to be bothered by it, but there's times in Harley's game where I think that happens and that first step is not in the right direction. And that's the and when you're talking about playing a team with Connor McDavid and dry-sidal guys that take that that minuscule opportunity and create more. I think that's where that pops up a little more.

And it's why Harley looks a little bit more behind the play like he did last night than he normally is. So it's it's kind of one of those like great questions, Dimitri, of like, is that something that you can fix in one film session on a Thursday afternoon between one game one and two? Or is that just going to be one of those long-term things where it's, you keep adding elements to Thomas Harley's game like he's added a couple of years. It's a great question and something that if you're the Oilers, you're betting on that you can't add it in one film session on a Thursday afternoon. You keep going right after him tomorrow night.

My one final note on McDaniel and just had, now I talk about the Oilers defense as the counterpart in a second here. And so I've been tracking. So McDavid has scored three goals so far this postseason, despite taking 86 shot attempts. And only one of them will come on 5-15, despite the fact that he leads all skaters is postseason in 5-on-5. shooting. And it's amazing because, you know, I was having this chat with someone in the Discord. And I think when you watch these Oilers games, part of it is because he just has the puck on a stick so often compared to everyone else. But it does feel like when you watch it in real time, then McDavid's passing up opportunities to shoot and trying to play the role of a playmaker.

And then you look at that shot volume and the fact that he's shooting more frequently that he ever really does in the postseason. And he just hasn't been rewarded for it with goals yet. And it's just kind of a reminder that he resides on an entirely different plane than pretty much any other skater, right? Where you're like, oh, man, I wish he shot the buck more than you look. And it's like, oh, he's actually shooting more than anyone else. And so, you know, he got a couple good looks, especially off the rush in this one. And I imagine if he keeps getting those, he's going to start converting much more frequently than he has so far this postseason. Though he Ler's D, I thought Blouchard was terrific yet again in this one.

He scored the beautiful goal off a little passing play with Dreysaitle's line in the second period. He had a keep later on at the blue line where he jumps up, brings it down, sets up another dry-sidal chance. They could have made it 4-1. Pretty much since about game 4 or 5 of the LA series, his numbers have been outrageous. F.I.15. And I love, you know, in this game, they play him with Kulak. And maybe they're stretching Kulak a little bit thin now, just because without Ekholm, he's playing much more than he typically would. And he did last postseason for them.

And it might be a mood point because it sounds like at home will probably be back once the series shifts back to Edmondson, but those two guys played 1022 if I want five in this game. The stars generated 0.02 expected goals against in that time offensively. And him and Bushard and Kulak have been so good together, whereas I do feel like, and one of the few times why Johnson was able to get out in space and create a look was he had this rush chance in the first period. And you watch it and nurses gap control is so there for the taking in terms of targeting it. And so in those minutes, especially in some of these.

more kind of leveraged matchups, there's going to be opportunities there for the stars against that. But when I come back, I think things fall into place a little bit more for the early list. You mentioned Klingberg earlier as well. And I know that Sagan kind of blew by him on the breakaway goal that we described earlier. I thought Klingberg was awesome in this game as well, especially with a puck out of stick.

Like he's moving so well now compared to the past couple years. And I think that's really cool in this series and sort of this idea that you're just watching him and say again out there. and kind of the redemption in terms of the injuries and the hip surgeries and everything and what they've gotten out of him. I mean, you know, him and Walman have been awesome for them in getting to this point. And I thought Klingberg, once again, was very noticeable in terms of some of the stuff he was creating and just trying to do stuff offensively and getting involved in looking for those cross-scene passes. And so that's really fun to see. Well, that third pair may be Sean Shapiro's favorite pair in hockey, just between my experience covering Jake Wallman and covering Jake Walman in Detroit.

and getting to know him a little bit and then covering John and Dallas and everything like that. So it's, I, I love that parry because what it represents is such an all gas, no breaks view of, of what your pairing is on the third pair. And I thought they were, I mean, yeah, I mentioned Sagan blown by him on the breakaway

for and everything like that, and that happens. But I thought that was, I thought Klingberg was good last night. And it's something, it's been kind of, it's been pretty refreshing to see, knowing him and knowing the stuff he's gone, through with the surgery where he thought his career might be over after the old Toronto debacle

and everything after the health and everything in Toronto and everything. It's been pretty cool to see him find a little bit of that vintage John Klingberg with the puck on his stick. And Hage's more fun when John Klingberg's playing like that. So that was a fun note for me watched last night, seeing that we saw it. I thought he was good the last round, but there's something special again about it, seeing him do it against Dallas and everything like that. The stars at home so far this postseason, what a run for them.

I mean, there's seven and one in terms of wins and losses, but I think the moments in them in particular, whether it's the game seven comeback against the Azwin, Ranton and when nuts, the Grandland Hattrick game four against the Jets, the Harley overtime winner to seal that round two series, this three power play goals in five minutes and 30 seconds stretch in the third period of game one against the Oilers.

It's been remarkable. What a plot twist as well, right? you and I spoke, I think the last time you were on during that Ave series about this run the stars had been on in games one and dropping them and starting series down and then having to adjust and their position to do so not only because of the personnel, but because of what a tactician, their coach is. So just the luxury of winning some of these game ones finally in these last two series and doing so in very, I guess, like, unpredictable and unforeseen circumstances the way they did here. we'll see what game two holds. I think there's positive stuff for both sides, especially the Oilers, in terms of building on the 5-15 play and kind of that feeding into the script that we had for both these teams heading into this series.

But yeah, it was a heck of a start to this matchup. Oh, yeah. And it was from a Dallas perspective, there seems to be a bit more of a better. And this is going to sound really weird based off how Edmonton out played them for the first 40 minutes. but there's just like a better starting psyche to a series. And I think that's one of those like you talk about how the same reason Dallas goes into game seven so confident under Pete DeBore. I think it was something where they really had to get that monkey off their back last series against Winnipeg in Game 1.

And I think you kind of saw a little bit of that last night where instead of kind of, and they play those, they played close game ones during that eight eight to game one losing streak. but there was confidence in cockiness and everything about that even before they scored the Miro goal 30 seconds into the third somehow. And so I think it's one of those things where mentality-wise, team-wise, that comes into play. But yeah, it's now tactically wise, this series is fascinating because all these things we've talked about, where things go for game two, how things are going to shake up. Because it's Dallas is going to, Dallas adjusts, Dallas has adjusted well from game to game.

And so I think they'll be better at five-on-five. But I think Edmonton is better equipped than almost any other team to throw new looks at them than any other team too. All right, buddy. Well, I'm looking forward to it. I believe I'll be back. That game is on Friday night. I'll be back Saturday morning with our pal Harmon dial to break that one down. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of good stuff to unpack there.

On the way out here, you got anything you want to plug with the listeners know where they can check out that piece. We mentioned about goalies and all the other stuff that going on. Yeah, go check out shapshotshockey.com. That's where I've got the piece we talked about earlier about goalies and kind of the lost art of catching puck. I've always got some fun stuff going there, doing a bunch of stuff from this series there. I'll do some stuff from the east as well. And then give a shout out to my guys over to elite prospects.

They're in the middle of that scouting team there is in the middle of diving through the draft guide sessions right now. So it's a lot of hair is being pulled out right now over that. So always good to give them a little love right now too. Yeah, check that out, check out my place, shapshotshockey.com. And it may be catered only for Dimitri's readership, but I think you might enjoy it as well. Well, if you listen to the show and you enjoy it and it seems like some of you do, I think you'll love that as well.

So certainly check that out. Give us a five-star review wherever you listen to show. Join us in the PDO guest Discord as well and get in the conversation. Apologies again for the issues people are having with Spotify. We're looking to get those uploads. fixed and hopefully it'll be back up and running soon in the meantime. If you just search Hockipedio, Sportsnet, there's a player there with all the new shows that are up.

And I believe they're up on every other podcast platform as well. That's all for us from today. We've got a couple busy days ahead. We'll be back tomorrow breaking down the East Final. As I said on Saturday and Sunday, we got the Sunday special resuming. So a lot of fun stuff to look forward to. Thank you for listening to the HockeyPedioCast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.