The Hockey PDOcast - Film Club - Elias Pettersson's brilliance on and off the puck

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

Jesse Marshall joins Dimitri to break down the tape on Elias Pettersson this season. They discuss the profound impact he's had at both ends of the ice, and the unique way he's done it.This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty.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. 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.

dressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovic. Welcome to the HockeyPedocast. My name is Dimitra Filippovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Jesse Marshall. Jesse, what's going on, man? Happy to be back for another film club. That's right.

I think it's going to be the last one of this regular season, at least. And we are doing it on our last Pedersen, a player that you wrote about last week, I believe a player near and dear to my heart who I've been following closely here, locally since he burst onto the scene a couple years ago playing for the Knucks. And there's a lot to unpack here. I'm, I'm kind of curious to see what direction you're going to take this in because,

you know, it feels like a lot of the players, we generally talk about well-rounded players, but whether it's been like Keller or Larkin, it feels like a lot of our conversation really like hinged around one specific thing they did, whether it was on or off the puck. In this case, I feel like we could almost like do two separate full shows on a last peterson, based on his offensive game and his defensive game.

So that's going to be a lot for us to get through here. I'm curious for which direction you're going to take it in right out of the gate. Let's go offense first, I guess, right? I mean, he's got 97 points. You know, at the time of recording the show on, you know, looking like it's going to be a nice cruise to over 100 for him. He topped out at 68 and 80 last year. You know, you look back historically.

This is decided. and offensively, you know, a breakout season for him, right? Career high in goals, career high in points. I think any time you run into a situation like this, Dimitri, the question is always why, right? Like, what happened? What happened here? You know, I think it's pretty clear that Elias Pedersen's always been really good

at controlling the puck, right? I don't think he got better at that. I don't think his shot got better. I think it's as good as it ever was. It's really good. I mean, you could take the paint off of the post when he winds one up and gets a hold of it. It's a laser. That's all good.

That's all been the same. What's happening? Like, why are these points coming? He's not, his shooting percentage isn't like, you know, astronomically gaudy in a way that would make you think this is an unsustainable sort of like run to the moon that'll never happen again. I think there are identifiable behaviors that we. we could look at that make him a really difficult player to defend. And for me, I think this is about a player learning how to expose NHLDs, right? Like, looking back historically at Elias, he's always been fast, he's always been able

to stick him on a food booth. And I think he's always taken players on at a high rate of speed directly at their face, right? that that puts you in an environment to be true where you're creating a set of challenges that maybe aren't entirely necessary for you right like you know you're given defensemen in some cases an advantage and this is you know i'm not saying this is all the time but what i see with him now especially in the offensive zone is this aloofness right this lurkiness and he blurs the lines in the responsibility of who is supposed to be covering him right so in those other situation I was talking about where he was very direct, very head-on, you know, maybe

taking time and space away from himself to be aggressive. I see him now like taking these just journeys through the offensive zone and trying to encourage people to follow him that really shouldn't follow him. He drags players out of position. He keeps their feet moving. He'll take your system and flip it on its head by exposing its weakest spot. And I think having the freedom to do that, you know, playing with a guy like a Kuzmanko who he himself has that knack and likes to have the puck on his stick. It opens up space for Pedersen to find these areas. It's just to me, it's working against the grain. D's going one way. I'm going the other. It's stepping out of the frame completely. I posted a couple of videos in the, in the article,

Demetri, of him slinking to the high offensive zone in a predatory fashion, not like, you know, I'm getting ready to play defense and I'm I'm sneaking out to get a jump on it. No, like I'm waiting because I know your D is going to make the first pass. When they make that first pass, I'm on it. I'm on it. I'm going to steal that puck and I'm going to have a scoring chance that, you know, maybe I didn't have last year. Those those predatory offensive instincts,

they happen all throughout the zone. And I think they're discernibly noticeable this year. His scoring chances are up. The rate at which he's getting the puck in the offensive zone is up. You look at the Canucks, he's carrying the puck across the Petterson, he carrying the puck across the office in Blue Line with possession better than anyone on the team. Shots and primary shot assists for the Canucks that put him in a stratosphere all his own. These are all byproducts, they have to be true of these behaviors that are, no, I'm shaking you now. Come get me, right?

I'm not going to get, you know, let's go on a trip. And he's taking these guys on these magical journeys to the defensive. zone. And, you know, it's, it's so fun to watch because if you ever want to know, like, on a given night where a team's weaknesses is, just watch Elias Pedersen. He's probably going to show it to you. Yeah, there's a certain, like, a herky jerky nature to his motion and his movement around the ice that creates a level of unpredictability that I think keeps defenders off

balance. I think the conversation about how much space he's able to operate with is a really important one here because he's not necessarily a really fast guy, but he gets so much respect from defenders. And it's because of two things. One, right when he burst on a scene and came out of the way, it came into the league, he showed that he was willing to step up for himself and throw those like thunderous, reverse checks whenever you get too close to him to just like quite literally knock defenders off their feet and punish them when they tried to get too close.

and then his skill level in terms of like embarrassing defenders with putting the puck in their skates, like quite literally dropping them at times, which is why I think he's gotten a lot of like Pavladatsu comps early in his career, right? Because there's that that certain motion he has that just like seems to just put defenders, twist them into an order to pretzel. The combination of those two has defenders very wary of approaching them, right? Like with a player like him, you don't want to come at him with speed and pressure him because he, he's going to leverage that speed to kind of speed up his own game and make himself look faster and throw you off balance. So the result is defenders now are very cautious. And so they're staying back. And that space is all of a sudden created all of these different attacking windows for him,

which he's using against them. So there's no right way to defend him. He's adapted. And it's a real problem for defenders because I don't know what you're supposed to do against him. You can't get too close to him. But if you give him too much space, he's going to step into his shot or he's going to wait for a passing window to open up and burn you that way. So it's kind of like pick your own poison almost. Yeah, I described them in the article as darting efforts, right? Like there are little darting efforts in and out. That, by the way, that's both in the offensive zone, in and out of scoring areas and like through the neutral zone, right? Like you're talking about in your piece. You know, you got to keep them wide. I mean, that's the big thing, right? He's got the ability, you know,

he uses his whole body to sell you, right? So if you, you know, so if you give him the space, I think to take you into the middle and towards the net, like he'll, you know, you know, mention drop you and go around you. So I think wide's the way to do it. But like you said, you know, it's a dangerous game to play because not only the control of the speed and the tempo, but just his hands, you know, it's, I think there's a lot of impressive aspects to his dangle ability, right? We see him, you know, all the time, you know, I was talking last night. He deflected one into the net in an extraordinarily unconventional fashion with it was that's it was it was it was downright dad's yeah that's kind of motion like behind behind his back like a little drag it was it was it was

absolutely disgusting uh so there's that right uh but for me it's it's it's the the speed at which he can execute this stuff that is just a killer you know so he gets these darting efforts going and he picks up that pace um you know it's it's like i said it's that whole body deakiness combined with the fact that you could do it at such a high rate of speed um you know i i I love the other move I see him do a lot, Demetrius, he'll use the boards to his advantage. Now that I'm, you know,

I was just thinking about my philosophy of trying to keep him wide. Um, he loves to throw the puck off the wall and step around you. That's the other thing. So he'll like make area passes to himself, right? Where like, he'll put comes to him and he one touches it off the wall. You know,

you're, you're making a motion towards him. Puck's already around you. So he's just, he's just stepped around and gone by and, you know, boom, now you get a clean zone entry. So I mean, look, at the end of the day, like this is all,

when we talk about like creating the space for yourself and confusing defensemen, this is refined ability from him. You know, I think like I said, the dangle ability to shot, that's always been there. That's always been there.

But the ability to marry a net another player, you know, and understand how to control time and space to your advantage, understand the, where a scoring lane is and how you can get in and out of it to your advantage. That all seems to have click. this year. And it's clicked across multiple coaches. We all know the situation. You don't need to spend an episode reviewing the situation in Vancouver, multiple different philosophies. It doesn't

really matter the situation you've put him in. You know, these, I guess if you want to say foundational aspects to how he can get open and how he can fool defenders have been permeating throughout multiple staffs at this point. Well, another component of how he manipulates defenders is he's also used it to sort of leverage into mastering the art of drawing penalties, right? You look at this year, he's drawn 36 penalties, which is the six mouth. He's only taken seven in

about like 1,500 plus minutes. So that plus 29 penalty differential leads the league, here's a stat for you. In his five NHL seasons, he's played 320 games, he's drawn 143 penalties, he's taken 31. I mean, we know that the value of a top player

who can consistently give you those types of numbers that gets you additional opportunities with a man advantage. He's also able to play like a hounding defensive style, right? Like he gets his stick in lanes. He tries to steal the puck from you. It's not like he's just floating around defensively. And yet he doesn't, he finds a way to sort of through timing and through stick skill, avoid taking penalties himself. And that's a massive luxury for this Canucks team as well. So I kind of wanted to note that because you see a lot of how he makes defenders uncomfortable and manipulates them. They're always like reaching and in awkward positions

and then he just suckers you into into like kind of trying to get the puck from him and all of a sudden you see it and it's gone and he goes down and the Canucks get a power play and that's a huge win for them. Yeah, absolutely. And we talk about these darting skating efforts and like sort of blurring the line

over whose responsibility you are as a forward. You know, when he sort of like springs himself on people, you know, like I posted a clip on the article I think it was against the sharks. There's a forward. that's, you know, got to stick up to Pedersen's hip, trying to follow him around the offensive zone. And you watch the clip.

It's just a, it's a knot. There's no, there's no, Pedersen's just doing whatever, you know, comes naturally to him. And you could see like there's no system at play here. You know, Pedersen's just on the move. This forward gets an opportunity to be physical with him for a minute, you know, up along the half wall on the far side and does so, right? And it's like you could see in the video, Demetri,

the moment that happens. Right. The moment that takes place, you almost, you almost get to say the Pedersen was waiting for it. Because he peels, he gets that puck to Cosmico, peels off. And that forward's finishing that check. That's where his mind is, right? Like, I've just hit Elias Pedersen. He's out of this play. Before he can even process that, Pedersen, there's no one covering him. You know, you're up on the boards. You've finished your check. You're watching this play developed. Peders, he's gone. He's already left you. You know, it's almost, it's almost. like the moment you abandon post, right? The moment you think, ah, I've got it. You know, like I've done it. He strikes, you know,

and it's almost like you're better off, you're almost better off taking the penalty sometimes because he's going to, like, he's dragging you around. Like your team is in an extreme disadvantage. Your system's topsy-turvy. You know, the moment you let that guard down, boom, he doesn't need a lot of his ability.

I love, we've talked about this on the show before. I hope I can articulate this to the listeners the appropriate way. I love for to make contact with the person that's covering them to let that person know that they're there with the intention of removing that contact. And you know, it's almost like they can feel, you know, they're supposed to be covering you. They can feel you there. You know, you've got a hand on them. Maybe you give them a stick a couple times. It's signaling to them, I'm here.

I'm here so you can peel off, right? It's creating the guys that you're there so you can no longer be there. And I'm rambling now, but it's these little tiny things, you know, that you engage with him physically. He engages with you physically. He uses that to his advantage in such a really smart way to give the guys that he's there before he makes a move or to get you to hit him so he can peel off. It's all about that separation and creating a disengagement from you so he can make a run to the net. And that puts people in a situation where they have to take a penalty, right?

All of a sudden, Elias Pedersons, you know, in your driving through. the defensive zone to get to the net, the person responsible for him is nowhere around, you're going to take your stick out and try to hook him. Like, you're going to do whatever you can to try to stop him. And these little micro-transactions that he has create this environment where you kind of have to do something. And a lot of times that something leads to a penalty. I think micro-transactions is a great way to describe it.

You know, as we're having this conversation, it got me thinking, like, that unpredictability of his and sort of both what he's going to do and where he's going to be on the ice, I think defenders sometimes are in compromising positions because they almost, they can't anticipate what he's going to do, right? Like he doesn't necessarily, he has sort of like trademark moves, I guess, but in terms of where he can utilize them on the ice, it's very difficult to just key in on one thing and be like, all right, well, you know, if I take away this,

all of a sudden he's going to be limited. And I think it's because he also doesn't know what he's going to do next. And that's not to say that he's not setting plays up. like all great players have an idea of like, all right, where everyone is on the ice, kind of like a chessboard. And then if I'd make this move, this is going to happen. And then these are going to be the next two, three things that happen down the line. And if it works out that way and the puck bounces right, we're going to have a great play

out of this. I think every great player thinks that way offensively with the puck. But for him, he's kind of willing to like, you're right. He like sort of establishes contact and position. And then all of a sudden, depending on what you do or what's available, he'll willingly beat you in any number of ways. And so he doesn't know what he's going to do next. And so, of course, the defender doesn't know.

And then that unpredictability just makes him almost feel like so much more fast, so much faster and more elusive just because everyone's sort of like on their back foot, nervously wondering what's going to happen next. Everything he does builds up to that zenith moment you just talked about, right? He's just trying to get to that point and position himself advantageously enough. So when he gets there, he knows he has the tools to beat you, right? He'll make it up, right? He'll make it up what he gets there.

I just have to get there. And I think we just, that you just put it in a little tiny pill bottle. That is to me the encapsulation of what's working here, right? That is the light bulb that went off is that realization. I just have to get there, right? Live to fight another day. I just have to get there.

I posted a video on the article against the avalanche. It was a clip against the ablance right off the opening faceoff, which by the way, I don't know how many clips I used in that article. were Pedersen struck immediately after the faceoff. Like, whether it be sneaking behind people like you did in this clip against the avalanche or just beating people to loose pucks, like waving off icing calls,

he scored a goal like that against the Rangers where he just dusted everybody on the offense. They all, like Adam Fox quit because he thought that it was icing and they got dusted by Patterson. But in this clip against the avalanche, you know, he takes this sort of like bizarre route off the faceoff very wide to get behind.

the entire Aves defense, right? Sort of like out of sight, out of mind. The play sort of is developing, right? It's up at the point. Everyone's moving around. Pedersen standing in between the last Aves defenseman and the goaltender, wide open, no one within seven feet of him. While all this stuff, and he just took, you know, it's that to me,

Demetri, that's what I'm talking about. It's that understanding of I'm going to take the longest route possible to get to this scoring area. No one is going to see me. I'm the most talented player on the ice. No one's going to see me get to this area. what do you know man puck squirts out to that slot peterson has it dmitri he dangles the length of the crease three times to undress the abs goal

it's like you watch it you think oh my god how did he do that but all of the work beforehand is what was important right it was it was that long route it was the behind the scenes it was positioning himself in the right spot and then once he gets the puck he already had that skill right we mentioned it he already had he could do that it was getting himself into that position that made the difference and you could the variety of ways he's doing it. Hey, once he gets the puck on a stick, the rest is child's play. You know, it's, it's fun to watch child's play, but he makes it look easy.

Well, he certainly does. And I did want to make a note, you mentioned kind of how he's always had the shot in his bag. And he has certainly, right? He bursts on the scene. He's beating goalies cleanly. He was like nearly a 20% finisher in his rookie season. He did hit a patch there. And it was purely through recurring wrist injuries that were plaguing him where he

was not nearly as lethal, but also more importantly and more impactfully to his game, he was kind of like, you could see that he didn't have the confidence in the strength of the wrist holding up in his like unwillingness to release, whether it was on the wristers or whether it was on the kind of those one-timers on the power play from the right circle. And because of that, his game had to change. And he just didn't nearly have as much kind of like sting to his offensive approach. And over the past, I'd say from the second half of last year, it was a big reason why, like Literally the first show I did this season was identifying players I'm most interested to watch this year.

And Pedersen was one of them because I was like, all right, he clearly turned a corner health-wise with his wrist at the end of last year. I'm curious to see how this carries over. And you can see that in his willingness to shoot, right? You mentioned his shots on goal on a permanent basis are way up, shot attempts, way up, high danger chances, way up. He's releasing at a significantly higher rate on a permanent basis than he ever has in his career. And when you combine that with the fact that he's established a baseline as a 15, 16% shooter, which is what he's again at this year, like it's a very comfortable 40 plus goal score that I would bank on year over a year.

And so that volume in concert with the efficiency is huge. And it's awesome seeing him be a threat from that right circle again. Like you can't, he can just hold the puck and all of a sudden just wait out the goalie and then just pick the top corner. And if you give them that time and space, which we've talked about, defenders do because they're scared of what he's going to do next. It's over for you.

Yeah. It's interesting to hear you say that about the rest. I had totally forgotten about that. And it makes sense now. One of the things I was going to talk to you about today was velocity. I had that written down on my notepad. Like, let's talk about a shot velocity because it's disgusting. I love a violent shooter.

I just, I'm a mark for it. They go back and look a couple days ago, I think, what this weekend he scored against Calgary is 36th. That was like, you put that in an encyclopedia. one-time slap shot supposed to look like.

You know, from the way that stick turned into a letter L from the amount of bend he got on it to like his body positioning, it was just a thing of beauty. And I think the thing that impresses me most is how much he can get on his wrist shot, like top corner bar down stuff with little with the littlest amount of wrist motion. You know, it's not like this this heave-ho, like his whole body's contorting to get this. He can just use his rail and a little flick and look, there it is,

100 miles an hour top corner. That's, I love watching that. But that, you know, that makes total sense. And not only is the willingness there in the volume, but he's got his velocity back.

If there was any loss of that last year, uh, fear not, uh, because he's shooting the dickens off that puck. I mean, like he gets, and it's,

it doesn't matter what the situation is, right? Like one timer down on one knee off, off, off center in a bad position. Like I talked about the little wrist flick with a high power velocity behind it where he takes it from the back of the blade to the front, like a high-lis stick.

You know, like you play highlight with a little, like he uses his blade like that where he'll fling the puck from the back of the blade to the front, almost like a slicker. He's launching it out of a catapult. But it's almost like every manner with which you could shoot it and be good at it. He's got that down pat.

I don't know that there's like really. there's really a way to shoot the puck that he hasn't mastered in spades at this point. Well, I think one of the goals he scored, I know, is at three on three. So it's like it's not necessarily an accurate representation of what the NHL product is like. It's an entirely different sport, essentially. But the goal he scored a couple weeks ago in St. Louis in overtime to be Jordan Bennington, I think captured a lot of these elements we're talking about so beautifully, right? He kind of like goes back and retrieves the puck deep in his own.

The defender gives him a lot of respect. And that's kind of a more recurring thing at three on three where no one's playing that tight. You want to sag back. But he builds up this speed. And you can kind of like see that choppy stride of his, but he's basically just gating speed methodically through the neutral zone, comes down his strong side and just like whips, just a disgusting shot past Jordan Bennington who had no chance on it. And it was like, this is every single little element. Like I don't know how this happened, but he got to that point that he needed to eventually and then executed. and it was just like a thing of beauty.

I could watch that on loop for like a full day. Loved it and I'll raise you one. Well, see it. I won't raise it. Not even like what a week or so after that. I don't know if this was a power play goal or not. Doesn't make a difference. You know, he likes to sit at the top of the near side circle, right?

And like kind of like work his way down, walk off that circle a little bit into a scoring area. It was it was him walking down that lane. mono and mono with john gibson that john gipson is at the top of the crease with his glove up ready to go and peterson just got a hold of one and Gibson Gibson had every motion correct you know the the glove was up by the ear you know it's just he put that puck in that one area where the glove couldn't get it and it had the time to stare him down before he did it and I just thought to

myself when I saw that what a disrespectful goal not like not like any flagrant classless way like here you are like looking at goalie right in the eye. Like he does everything correctly and you're just like, no, that's still not good enough. You know, so that's, uh, he's got that little patient touch to him, you know, where it allows, you know, he'll make you wait, you know, like we talked about Clayton Keller. He does that, you know, he'll get a little bit of that with Pedersen. He'll shoot it fat. It's just, like you said, I don't think if you're a goalie, I have no what, I mean, like, I think there's any way of knowing what's coming next, you know, it's just, uh, you just have to

know it's going to be volatile. There's to be a lot of velocity behind it. I don't know how it's coming to me, but I know it's going to have a lot of speed. The thing is, is like, so you mentioned he needs just three points in the final five games to hit 100 for the first time in his career. He has the 37 goals. He's also got 35 primary assists. By the way, like to talk about the playmaking, the only players with more primary points

than those 72 are McDavid, Dracital, Randon, and Basternak, Robertson, Kuchov, McKinnon, and Matthew Kachuk, so he's top 10. And the reason why I note that and why it's relevant is, despite the, like finishing ability in the shot that we're talking about. He remarkably only has six power play goals this season on a team that's, I think, 11th in goals per hour on the power play, and it's been good. And, you know, part of it is just randomness. Like, I think he didn't have a single one until like January 27th or something,

which is like almost like unfathomable considering how much of it runs through him and what a threat he is. But I think also at the start of the year, if you go back and watch it, I didn't like the way they were positioning him. And this is one of my consistent sort of beefs with when teams have. their shooters on the flank. He was like almost near the blue line. And he was like, he wasn't nearly as big of a threat there.

And then they were just consistently trying to like, they basically had one play. It was, all right, I'm going to try to pass it cross seam to J.T. Miller. And if that doesn't work and then the defense just sits on that, well, we'll try again next time. And they had no sort of like followups to that. And it's been much better since. And he's finally started scoring more goals and you're seeing like that goal against the flames that you mentioned where it's unfair when he gets at the buck in that position. And part of that is because you look where he set up, he's like pretty much on at the circle, right?

Like he's much closer. And that's a thing that I keep coming back to. It's like that's what that was a big change for Cole Calfield from the only thing that really changed under Marty St. Louis when he took over from Dominic Dushar. And was all of a sudden they started posting him up in much better scoring positions on the power play. And I was like, I just this is something that needs to like be taken note of. And that's a very similar story to what's happened to Peders in this season. So I didn't kind of want to know that to help explain why he just. inexplicably had zero powerboy goals for the first like 40 games in season.

Yeah. Systems not, not player. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I like now, like you said,

the position that they put him in, uh, it allows him to like, you know, you can shoot from there, but you can also move from there, right? And I think that's like the critical pieces. You don't have to just,

that's not a stationary position, right? You have so many different. You still have your cross-sized feed to J.T. Miller. It's still there. You can still use that if you want. Um, I don't know,

you don't have to. But it's still there. You can, you can, you can move back behind you can take the puck behind the net if you wanted to i mean it just opens up so many possibilities and like i think like you said that flames goal is a really good example because you could see how he's not even the first man to that spot somebody else is there before him you you have really a good rotation like brings him into that area after the fact that's where he

eventually scores from um you know i think i said it's it's it's you know it's about creating ambiguity in whose responsibility a person is right um and and and and sort of exploiting those little gray areas you know that you know that clip of Vince mick man where he's like sitting down during an interview and people posted all the time. And it's like, he's like very like contemplative and reflective. And he just goes, he was special. Like that, that's me just reflecting on Eliza Pedersen and what he's doing on the 25th ranked team this season and the impacts he's had both on and off the puck. Right. It's going to be like me just like, people like, oh, like tell me about this Canucks season or tell me about Pedersen. Like years from now,

I'll be like, ah, he was special. And that's, that's just how I feel watching him play. It's, it's, that's, that's the only way I can describe. of it. Jesse, let's take our break here. And then we've got plenty of other points that I wanted to hit on Pedersen before we finish the show. So we're going to take that break. You're listening to the HockeyPedio cast as always streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.

Your number one spot for Flames coverage can be found on Flames Talk with me, Pat Steinberg, exclusive interviews, trusted insiders, and the latest news. Listen live weekday afternoons and four or stream the Flames Talk podcast on demand. All right, we're back here on the Hockeyedio, guest with Jesse Marshall. We're doing our film club on Elias Pedersen and the qualities of his game that have made him so special and effective the season.

Before we move on to kind of off the puck play and some of his defensive exploits this season, Jesse, you had a quick note that maybe can tie it or close the loop on the conversation we're having about his shot and kind of what a threat that's been. Yes, went up a flex this year. We learned that at the All-Star game this year. He just disclosed that to reporters. We're talking about his point totals and Terry was on. So he's, I think 87 now, he said, which is a step up from him.

So we talk about like that shot in Calgary, right? And you talk about, you know, I mentioned you a stick turned into the letter of the shape of the letter L. But that may be the reason why. So I think if, you know, we're talking about velocity. If you're talking about wrist, right? Yep. You have a lower burden on your human self with a higher flex stick. The stick does more of the work for you.

So that may be notable. You know, I don't know if that, you know, I thought it was interesting. You know, the light bulb went on after you mentioned the wrist thing from last year. And I thought, you know, with the volatility, he's getting on a shot now combined with, you know, maybe that injury last year. Maybe that's a move out of a move of necessity that has paid off for him in a big way. No, I think that's certainly very notable. And that's a good, good thing to keep in mind.

Okay. Off the puck. I want to talk about his defensive play because I think. think, you know, Bergeron certainly had the, the Selky locked up from day one, essentially. I think that I would strongly consider putting Pedersen right there in that next class with like the backlands and of the world and Jordan Stall and so on and so forth, whoever you want to put at the rest of your ballot. And I think a big distinction for him of this season is, you know, you look at his usage.

It's up to 20 and a half minutes or so per game, which is a big step up from he had essentially played the exact same amount for three straight seasons. It was like 18 and a half minutes or so. And it's not because this 5-1-5 usage is changed. That's pretty much the exact same. The power play is the same. It's because he started to take on top penalty kill assignments as well, right? Especially now the Bull Horvats gone and then his minute and a half or so per game are out the door. He's been playing nearly two minutes per game on a penalty kill. And he's he's leveraged a lot of these offensive skills that we've talked about into being a threat there as well, which is, which is a little wrinkle for me. He's played 130 short-handed minutes this season. He leads the league in four

short-handed goals, four short-handed primary assists. They have like a 31-percent goal share or something with him on the ice short-handed, which is amongst the league leaders as well. And so that's, that's a really cool component of this. Their penalty kill for a long time at the start of the year was an absolute mess. And part of it was just they weren't getting any saves. They were certainly hanging their goalies out to dry as well. But one way to help kind of counteract that or negate the impact that can have on your game detrimentally is by just going back and scoring on the other team themselves, especially now that, you know, teams are using more four forward one defenseman sets,

five forward sets at times. There's opportunities to strike there. And so I love the idea of using your most skilled players to kind of press your finger down on that and attack when the opportunity presents itself. Yeah, in a similar vein, Dimitri, he's out at the end of the game a lot when the net is empty for the other team. Even on defensive zone faceoffs, you know, they're not afraid to put, you know, I think about, like, I'm not, I'm not picking on Phil Kessel.

I love Phil Kessel, right? But like Mike Sullivan would never do that. You know what I mean? Like Mike Sullivan late in the third period, the game, he's not putting Phil Kessel out for a defensive zone faceoff. Like, like, Pedersen's the player that is going to, like, I view him as a really, like, for those of you that play the beer league, like, nobody wants to go to an 11 p.m. game on a Tuesday night where you have someone trying really hard. You know what I don't know. I feel like Elias Pedersons, that young adult in men's adult league, who still has a ton of energy and is showing up like a puppy dog and like driving us all us old people crazy.

And we just want to go home and go to bed and like wake up early and go to work the next day. He drives you nuts with how much he could skate and how much he dogs you. You know, I think that's the part for me that speaks to why he's out on the ice at the end of the game. He's relentlessly dogging you. No, no safe space. from his forecheck, his active stick, he's really annoying to play against. I have to imagine he's really annoying to play against. You know, that is what creates turnovers, right?

So there's a game months ago. Now I watched a game, the Connucks game, as the Flyers. Same thing out at the end of the game. You know, active stick knows where passes are going, and knows where lanes are, gets up, picks one off, and being at the other way, boom, game's over, right? You know, you're not putting him out there because he's particularly skilled off, you know, defensively.

You're putting him out there because he understands lanes, right? So much of being good defensively as a wing is just being present, right? I keep talking about that. It's just being in the right spot and being engaged and, and he's got that covered in spades. And you combine that with the fact that he understands how good forwards work. And he's so proactive. That's the key. So proactive in his own zone.

and you see him getting to places before opponents, recognizing where weaknesses are. He's very instinctual in that way, man. Like, I just keep going back to that word. They're very instinctual actions, like, not afraid to step out of the system. I'm using heavy quotations to serve an area of need without leaving a vulnerability.

You know, you want smart forwards that have that perception and that ability to pick out areas of need and go and attack them, whether that be offensively or defensively. And I think he's got a knack for both. Well, you know what's an interesting component of this? I've seen a lot made of the fact that he's actually blocked a lot of shots this year. He has 83 blocks, which is behind only Austin Matthews amongst all forwards.

And we know that the whole conversation around block shots is very fraught, right? Chances are if you're blocking a ton of shots, it's because you don't have the puck a lot. And we don't like that. And certainly for your most skilled players, I think there's a lot of concerns. concern about blocking shots because you don't want them, you know, just unnecessarily like breaking a bone, just getting in front of a slap shot for for no reason. You need them doing stuff with the puck and helping create goals. That's what they're paid to do. But in this case, I went back and watched all of them because I was kind of curious how he was accruing them.

And a lot of it is using these sort of like smarts and anticipation and being there that you're talking about in mirroring whoever has the puck. So he's following them step for step and like action for action. And he's closing the game. gap on them. And then he's almost like, he's like vacuuming in the puck and then doing something with it and stealing possession of it. So it's almost like a takeaway really more than a block. It's not like he's, you know, standing in front of the net and just like eating up slap shots and going down in pain and then being dragged off the ice time and time again. And you're like, how are this guy's limbs still attached to his body? It's a lot of very like harmless stuff where he's really close to the shooter and he's

basically just like, whoop, this is mine now. And then he goes the other way. And so I didn't want to note with that as well because I think that's a part of this and it's kind of like a cool little wrinkle to his game that we've also seen a lot this year and I helped help explain kind of why he's been such a threat turning defense into offense. Like he has a whole track your beams of Star Wars, you know, just sucks that puck right in. Yeah, that's good. I mean, the block, you're right. You know, I mentioned that like sort of like relentless harassment in the defensive zone,

right? That's a part of it, right? Like if you have someone that's engaged with you and is, and is fast and can get to where you are quickly. That's that space you have to shoot like becomes null pretty fast. And I got to get back to the active stick thing. You know, that's that's the big piece that you see.

That's what that's the cornerstone of most good defensemen. Yeah. It's having a sweeping active stick that they used to poke pucks away and create loose puck races. And, you know, he's going to beat mostly everybody in a small point A to point B race. You know, all he needs, you know, like I said, it's about getting to that point. all he needs to do is just get a dislodge.

That's it. One stick on that puck and a guy like here, Kuzmanko, don't make you pay for it. And I like that, you know, again, he's willing to, you know, take a step out of that traditional role, you know, to, I think, take on a little bit of a greater responsibility defensively and how aggressive he's willing to be. Certainly. I mean, and his impacts at 5 on 5 on both ends of the ice are off the charts. this year, right? Like if you look at, and there's another conversation to be had about the dangers of just using with or without your numbers because of usage and context and all that. But like, everyone that plays with him looks really, really good. And then as soon as they step away from

them, it's like, oh, things all of a sudden aren't quite as easy. And I think that helps explain a lot of his impact with him on the ice at 515 this season. The Canucks are up 11, have a 55% expected goal share. Without him, they're down 30 and have a 45% expected goal share. He has a point on 86% of the 5-15 goals they've scored with him on the ice. He just kind of reflects how much the puck is running through him. He's tied with Pasternak for the six most of five-on-five points. I mean, he's been phenomenal, whether it's been now the power of play goals are coming, but talked about the PKK stuff.

We talked about the 5-15 impacts, watching him and Kuzmanko play off of each other. I was a bit critical of the decision just from a team-building perspective to keep Kuzmanko on the two-year extension they signed him to mid-season because I was like, man, like this is a good time to cash in, considering how far away you are on a player whose value is really high, get a bunch of capital for him and kind of kick this thing down the road and play the long game. But they've been fantastic together and watching them sort of sequence some of these plays and having a guy who can sort of think of the same wavelength of them and then have the skill

to execute it and have a complementary skill set at that, which is what Cosmeco has been for better since this season. It's been really fun to watch. So I'm excited to keep seeing those two guys kind of progress and develop together because it's been dynamic, it's been highly entertaining, and it's been wildly productive as well. Yeah, I love the whole, like, you know, they just kind of throw the book in the trash. Because Manco loves carrying that puck, man. You got two guys on that line.

I really like to carry the puck. You mentioned, like, everyone looking really good when they played with Elias Pedersen. Anytime you can play with someone who does as much of the heavy lifting as he does with zone entries and stuff like that, you're going to look good. I have to go back to that point. And his ability to cross the blue line with possession of the puck on his stick is, you know, up there with the elites of the National Hockey League and takes such a burden off of his line mates and allows them to position themselves in areas where they can score

and be a secondary trailer to the play, you know, as opposed to, you know, the main driver of it and kind of sneak in and be that. That to me is the parts that, you know, I think, and this is, you know, again, using Corey's data from the, from his all three stones project, but his ability to, you know, play within the blue lines, I think, and be a factor in that neutral zone area, especially just begets him, you know, so much good on offense. It's a, I keep looking at that, at the data, you know, back again to how he can cross the blue line with the puck and, you know, rush chances, you know, all the way down to passes leading to a chance. You know, he's carrying the mail for the Canucks in a big way. Yeah, I mean, with Imikuzmenko, they're like a 60% team, both pretty much in terms of goals and expected goals. I think the question for them moving forward is how you, how you supplement them with enough talent when they're not on the ice. And this Canucks team has, you know, they have some money coming off the books.

They have so much inefficient spending on their roster in terms of like money allocated to guys that don't need to be paying or guys that are being paid way too much or guys they never should have signed to begin with. And so that can be kind of frustrating. But it's also, it makes it very tantalizing when you watch their top players play, how dynamic they can be, how on any given night, they can just sort of overwhelm even really good defensive teams. And it makes you think, all right, if we sort of like channel this and capture it and then spread

this throughout the lineup and have more of it and he sort of uses philosophy elsewhere, we could have really good things down the line. But then time and time again, it's a lot of like one step forward, two steps back, and that can be very frustrating. Yeah, for sure. But it's to your point to, you know, it's rare to have a line. I think anyway, that's just two-way dominant as that one is, you know, there are a lot of lines that are good by proxy of playing offense a lot. You get him in their zone and it could be had, you know, I think there are some aspects of their possession metrics that are attractive and then some aspects of their expected goal metrics that maybe don't match that, right? There's like an imbalance there, but that is not the

case of this line. It's one of those Swiss Army knives in the sense that, like, you really can deploy it and you're not restricted in how you go about it. So like from like Rick Tocke's perspective, you know, you can use that line proactively or reactively, depending on the situation, defensive zone, defensive zone. It doesn't really make a difference. You don't have to hide them, right? And that's, you know, not necessarily an uncommon trait of top lines in the NHL, but the thoroughness, you know, with which this team can play between or this line can play

with, you know, I think within all three zones, mostly, you know, driven by what a lot of as Pedersen is doing is, I think, the most impressive part. Yeah. I mean, Dom has them performing at like a $15 million market value or something this season, right? And I think I'm curious to see on the final ballots, I think the fact that the Canucks are are 25th, I believe, in the league right now. And that's a step off for them because they've been playing better of late and banking points.

Like for a while, they were a bottom three, bottom four, bottom five team. And they've been out of it for so long. I think that's a big part of why Patterson's maybe nationally not getting as much attention for this type of caliber season that he's having. And so I'm curious to see whether that's reflected on MVP ballots at the end of the season because I'd be hard pressed to come up with like, I don't know, seven guys who have been more valuable than him this season. I think he should shouldn't be kind of like around that five range or so.

But there's going to be a lot of players who have just had much more team success that I think are going to be, you know, get rewarded for it. And I don't think that's necessarily right because he's essentially, like when he's been on the ice, the Canucks have been a contender. It's just the problem is that he can only play 20 or so minutes a night. And that's one of the limitations of the sport, unfortunately, compared to, you know, like a quarterback in football or a star player in the NBA. I mean, what do the Caducs look like without those 97 points?

You know, it's like, I mean, I think they're. They're right there with like the sharks and the blue jackets and Blackhawks, honestly. Like it's it's been that bleak otherwise. Right. So I mean like in the spirit of the award, right, like if we're to judge it by what it says it is, you know, that's a pretty big difference. Right. And like, you know, and I know the Canucks aren't, you know, they are where they are right now. But where would they be without him?

That's the question we're asking here. Not, you know, that this. I agree. I just don't think you can turn it into a team award. right um i think you know the value that he provides to that team is you know the proofs look it's the proofs in the pudding we're not going to be the wax poetic about it i'm with you i hope i hope the recognition is there and i think especially like i think east coast people especially need to wake up to the fact that this guy almost has 100 points you know that that that to me

i think is you know for the folks that aren't staying up late and watching west coast hockey that's easy one to miss if you're only seen the kinnucks once a year for your team um you know that's don't, that's an easy one to mess. Yeah, yeah. No, he's, he's going to get 100 points the hard way, certainly, both in terms of, uh, environment and, you know, uh, game states and, and all that and pretty much how much heavy lifting he's done. Um, okay, that's pretty much all the notes that I had for Patterson.

Do you have anything, uh, do you have anything else on him? No, um, that's it. I think we've covered it all. I mean, he's 24, right? He's turning 25 in November, I believe, next season. Like, that's very exciting because we know that, the meat of a skater's career is like 24 to 26 or so and he's like entering like the the firm part of that and seeing how like cerebral he is right and like the level he thinks the game at combined with the physical skills reaching a prime like how strong he is in the puck now how vicious that shot of his is now that his wrist is healthy you put all of that together and it really feels like this is kind of the start of something I'm not sure how many points he's going to have next season but especially if they can make a few moves this off season

to surround him with more talent and you have better defensemen who can help get him the puck in advantageous positions. I think this isn't just like, this certainly isn't a one-off, right? I think this is the start of adding to even greater heights over the next couple seasons for him.

He's already played 320 games than actual hockey league. And it seems like the kind of player who gets better, the more information he collects about his opponents. You know, and the more he learns, and the more he sees, and the more he experiences, like, the more he evolves.

His game continues to grow and to grow and grow. Like that, I just, I don't think to your point, like, there's just, I think there's more to come, you know. Like, this is the year where he figured out, like, some of the micro stuff we've been talking about. I look forward to see how he builds off of that. You know, D, you're going to try to keep up with him, right? Like, tape is, that everything's on tape. People are going to watch tape. They're going to see what he's doing.

The necessity to keep this going is there. I think he's going to. I know he's going to. I just look forward to seeing what it looks like. I'm sure they're going to try to keep up with him. Good luck. And certainly, a lot of these coaches and players see stuff that I don't when I watch tape.

They're much smarter, much more experience than I am at reading the game. I don't see a lot on the tape where it's like, all right, oh, he did this, this one time. Okay, well, next time I'm going to look out for that

because while you're looking for that, he's going to pull out 75 other tricks out of his bag that he can beat you with. Yeah. There's a lot of random number generation. video games, Dimitri, right? Yeah. I feel like you're playing a randomizer or a hockey randomizer with Elias Petterson.

He's like, what's coming out of the box today? Yeah, he turned, he turned all the sliders up. He's cheating. He's cheating this season. Yeah, that's it. Okay, man, this is a blast. I'll let you let the listeners know where they can check you out, where they can read the Pedersen piece we talked about and all that good stuff.

Yeah, yeah, that's at McKeonshawkey.com. I talk about the NHL there and I talk about the Penguins at the Athletic. Love it, man. This was great as always. Even if we don't do any more film clubs, the rest of the season, we'll certainly have you back on to do some playoff discussions.

Who knows, we might even get to talk about the Pittsburgh Penguins, although it's looking less and less likely. And even if they make it, maybe we won't want to devote any valuable airtime to talking about that. But still, an option for us.

For the listeners, if they enjoyed this, certainly go and leave us a rating interview, smash that five-star button. Also hop on the Hockey-Padcast YouTube page. I'll post a four or five minute compilation of a lot of the clips we talked about with Pedersen

and kind of stuff to watch out for read Jesse's piece and we'll be back tomorrow with another episode of the HockeyPediocast as always streaming on the SportsNed radio network.