The Hockey PDOcast - Film Club - Jack Eichel’s Two-Way Play This Postseason

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

Jesse Marshall joins the show to break down the tape on Jack Eichel and talk about how he's been able to make such an impact on and off the puck this postseason.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.

since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey Pee-O-Cast. My name is Demetri Fulipovich and joining me's my good buddy, Jesse Marshall. Jesse, what's going on, man? Happy to be back on the eve of our Stanley Cup final here. That's right. And we're doing the Jack Eichol Film Club. I was going to make a joke about how we're doing the Will Carrier Film Club, just to keep the bit going, which you made sure is alive and well on Twitter the other day. But Listen, I know we're depraved over here, right? Like, we cover stuff that no one else in hockey media wants to cover because it's so nerdy. It doesn't necessarily sell clicks.

It's not mainstream. But I think a Will Carrier Deep Dive is a bit too much for even our audience. For a whole episode, maybe, yeah, we got a ton. We can't do that. Yeah, we can do like a Will Carrier Corner, right? Carrier's Corner maybe. We can brand that one day. But we'll focus on Igo because I think he's got a lot for us to dig into here.

And we're also coming off of, I should say, in my humble opinion, our best film club. to date of all the ones we've done so far this year. I thought the Matthew Kachuk one we did a couple weeks ago was as in depth and detailed and nuanced as you're going to get. So hopefully people listen to that. And this will be a nice little contrast, right? We've got the on the one side from the Panthers, the Kachuk tape. Now we've got the ECHO one. And so if you're looking to get ready and get excited about this series, which is starting this weekend, no better place than this. So let's get into it. I, we've been planning this for a while now. I sent you a bunch of tape that I put together.

Some of the clips I put on YouTube. What sticks out to you? Where do you want to start this conversation? I'll give you the floor. Yeah. You know, I guess for me, it's the unicorn-like combination of both the ability of Jack Eichel to protect the puck like a big Jordan stall-esque player. You know, you think of like those bigger powery forwards that have they have two things, Demetri, one, a wide base, right? Strength and a wide base that makes them difficult to knock off

the puck. But then they have this like upper, lower back sort of strength. No matter what angle you're coming at them from, they can make themselves big, wide, spread out, you know, leaning forward or in a compromised straight up position and keep you off of the puck. You know, to couple that, which makes him this really, really difficult character to handle, but to couple that with his ability to almost be magnetized to the puck and to that ability to, you know, the old phraseology to handle it, stick handle in a phone booth. He can do magical things to take difficult pucks into him in transition, almost like absorb them along the way. You see him toe drag pucks from the very, very tip of his blade all the way through his legs up to his stick.

just uncanny abilities to stick handle in really crazy ways. When you meld those two elements together, you get this super rare package that I just don't think that you see in a lot of players, which is that physical ability, right? Especially, you know, I talk about like lower and upper back to the global, that stuff he's been through to get to this point, right? That's such a critical, ultimate part of his game. But that with the stick handling and just sort of that deceptive nature with the puck, it makes him, I think, such a unique character.

And I'm sure we're going to touch on this, Demetcher, but you, I bet you pull goalies that have spent a lot of time going up against Jack Eichol over these playoffs. I think they'd probably all agree that he is just a buffer, like a bluffer, excuse me. He bluffs better than anybody in the league. And all this stuff that he's really good at. We talk about all this. He hides it all, right? So he's almost, I love the clips you put on YouTube because I feel like every one of me is staring the goalie down. He's locked eyes with him.

And there's all this stuff happening peripherally. And he's making these, you know, no look backhand passes, right? No look drop passes. One touchers to teammates that are out of his line of sight. And all this while staring the goalie down and just giving no indication of what that next move is. I guess I'd start there because that's such to me, you know, we think about player archetypes. right and we like to put people in buckets based on their physical prowess or how they skate or this that or the other thing you know this this is a mix of so many things you know it's it's it's

i think rare to see these skill sets on display like this yeah and and that's a great place for us to start because it feels like his biggest impact here has been providing the golden nights with exactly what they were lacking for years even when they were a very successful regular season team that was making it to the conference finals for a couple years there they're they're doing every year, right, was they'd run into a goalie. They would have no sort of plan for when the rush game was taken away a little bit of breaking through defensive structures in the offensive zone and getting the puck into high danger areas, right? And then you look this postseason, sport logic has Jack Eichael fifth out of all players in passes into the slot behind only

Matthew Kachuk, Connor, McDavid, Mitch Marner, and Sasha Barcov. He's fifth also in time with the puck on his stick in the offensive zone. And so he's provided them all of a sudden now with kind of like this like master key to unlock a lot of these problems opposing defenses give them when they get set in the defensive zone and finding ways to get the puck into these areas. And so for as loud as his game's been, right, because in those clips, you'll see a ton of sort of like splash plays, right, where it's like you don't need to know much about hockey to appreciate how dazzling it is and how dynamic he is.

but what's actually impressed me more has been how sort of quiet his game has been when he's been in the offensive zone in terms of like slowing the play down, being very methodical and deliberate in what he wants to accomplish. And that's awesome because we talk all the time about how playoff hockey can be such an adjustment for players, right, that aren't used to it, that are inexperienced playing this time of year. It's just a different game that it is in the regular season. We talk about how Jason Robertson had to go through that adjustment throughout

postseason. Jack Eagle is 26 years old, but this is the first time he's ever playing in the NHL postseason. And pretty much from the jump, maybe it took him a game or so there at the start of that Winnipeg Jet Series. But this entire time so far, he's been about as comfortable as you're going to see. And I think that that's, I mean, that's awesome for him. And it's also a testament to sort of like how well he's rolling right now as a player. Yeah. I mean, I think that you really did a good job to describe it. You know, I think about like in soccer where you have like these connecting midfield players that we talked about Testament lap, one of the first of the one of the the last episode, we really provide this connection between the defense and the offense and what's

going on in those neutral zones. I think he's taking the initiative there, Dmitri, to enter with possession, but then like after that point, it doesn't stop. You know, there's, there's discernible moments in hockey games where the knights need a breath, right? They need to come up for air and let that pressure off. And there's so many times in a game where you've seen Jack Eichel walk the puck in the offensive zone, eat it, keep it alive, establish this. It's the foundation of a long-term offensive zone possession. Like all the things that we think, like routinely in these situations, having to out-position or out-maneuver two players, you know,

while he waits for the cavalry to arrive behind him and catch up, he's doing it successfully. It's not just about this up-tempo forecheck all the time. I think of what we've talked about, like on the last cup, it's like the flavor of this playoff is this forecheck. he's almost the antithesis of that, right? Because he's not winning the puck in transition. He's not going up and beating down the other team's defense to get it.

Sure, that happens. This is like a more methodical like you come chase me because I have the puck approach. And it's that keepaway game. It's all the skills we talked about to tie into that. And the ability to just undress people, Dmitri, inside or outside, right? Because I think that's an important point. Like it's not one way or the other. you know, he uses it to create lanes to the front of the net and score.

He uses it to elongate position to the outside. I think there's a variety of mechanisms. But it's almost like he's always there, right, in those critical moments where you need that breath, you need that shift off, need to take the pressure off the, take the heat out of the hot kitchen, to quote Mike Lang. That skill set that you've just described has been present in those moments and has been available for the nights there as well. Well, his movements have been so fluid and smooth, right?

And here's a practical example for you. There was a play that stuck out to me in Game 6 against the stars. They're on the power play. And he typically is on the left side, right? But in this occasion, just because of the movement, he wound up on the right wall. And he gets the puck, and he's in a position where he doesn't necessarily, it's not very dangerous, right? He's a right shot. He's up against the right wall.

There's a penalty killer in front of him. A shot there is not going to really have any sort of discernible. impact. And so because of how smooth and how slow everything is moving for him right now, he's able to essentially line things up and stack them sequentially in a way where then he, like, he's comfortable with it. And so he just like does this sort of like semi-circle up high in the zone, comes out to all the way to the left wall. And then a shooting lane opens up and he steps right into it and rings it off the bar. And he doesn't score on the play, but just like his ability to essentially, it felt like time stopped almost. And he was like, all right, in

five seconds, this is exactly what I'm going to do. And he just bided his time until everything else fell into place. And that when a player's operating at that level, right, it's almost like the highest level of being as an offensive player where you're, you literally are two or three steps ahead of everyone else out there and you're just waiting for it all to happen over like due time. It's great points. Like Magnus Carlson playing chess.

You're watching a grandmaster who's operating like six, seven moves ahead of you. And, uh, has got that there's just this innate page. that comes with that too. But I have to go back to this head up, the head up piece to this, right? Because, you know, everything that you just described is tied back to that, you know, never having head down, looking at the puck and just constantly being up and surveying what's going on. I don't care like you put a montage of Ikel clips together. I don't think I've ever seen him do that. I don't think I've ever seen him take a moment to gather where the puck is. And it's almost like you talk about these fluid motions, all this stuff is happening.

bang bang, bang. You know, there's never that time. Players that aren't this talented, Dimitri, need time to gather their thoughts, right? They need time to collect the puck and calm it down. They need time to not have it on edge. They need time to have it on their forehand. They need time to pick their head up

and see where their teammate is. Cut all that out, man. Just cut it all out. This is what happened is if you watch a really talented player operated a high level of skill intrinsically without having to think twice about it. There's the tape. Go watch it.

I mean, it's unbelievable to behold, but it's all driven by vision. It's all driven by vision. And I feel like you can touch that in every single one of these clips that we watch or all the highlights of Jack Eichol. That is the thread that drives this whole thing together. He's processing the stuff, not as it happens.

He's processing it in the future. And that's where I was driving at when I'm talking about going inside, outside players have preferences and how they want to have the puck on their blade or they want to be in the forehand or the one of the backhand. For Jack Eichowitz, which side am I going to be able to attack best next? Once I get through this layer, right, what's best for me in the next step? And you don't see these like these sort of tells that players have the things that they like to do in places they like to be. He likes to be in the area where he's going to score.

I mean, at the end of the day, to your point, if it takes him a day to get there, it doesn't really make a difference. You know, there's a vision and patience element to his game that enables him to do this stuff. Well, and that's very important as we look ahead to this next series because one team you don't want to ever have your head down against is this Florida Panthers team. And so that is good just from a pure player safety perspective, but also being able to be effective in terms of what he's going to do with the puck. It's going to be very important. You know, let's talk a little bit about the shooting. You mentioned kind of how he can trick goalies.

and sort of how all of this vision and where his eyes are at, ties into all of this. I kind of wanted to talk about the good and bad of that that we saw in the West final though, because a lot, I think, a lot wasn't made because they ultimately won, right? But he didn't score a goal in those six games. And he had the four assists or whatever.

Now, if you watch those games, you would know that that isn't necessarily at all representative of how well he played because he was absolutely terrorizing Stars defensemen all series. They simply had no answer for his speed. no recourse for trying to slow him down. He had, despite not scoring in those six games, he had 15 of his own scoring chances,

and he had 29 shot attempts. So more than half of his shot attempts were scoring chances by my count. And he set up another 10 scoring chances for his teammates, both of which were more than any other skater in the series. Now, I did want to make a note about his shooting technique or form, right? Because I think he's clearly shown that he's got significant shooting. talent when when he can kind of get set in a more controlled environment, especially on the power player, right? When he's kind of on that flank and he can sort of more slowly step into his shot,

you can see like he's clearly got the talent to pick a corner. It's not a concern at all. When he gets on some of these rushes though, I'm not sure what is going on entirely. I'm not a shooting doctor by any means, but it does look to me like he's almost not, whether it's rushing it or not, it's almost like he does like 95% of the assignment right like he takes the puck deep in his own zone he breaks it through the neutral zone he weaves through traffic he gets in he gets in tight for a scoring chance and then he he really seems to default a lot to shooting the puck kind of along the ice um and and a lot of it is being it winds up looking like the goal he just sort of effortlessly kicks it away or whatever right yeah and i'm not i'm not sure what i'm not sure

what is that is like why that's happening because he does have the ability to lift the puck and get a more dangerous look off but he keeps going back to that and we've seen that countless times this postseason where it's almost like that meme of you know like the the drawing of the horse right where it's like this like immaculate detail drawing

of like the back legs and the butt and like all the way to like the middle of the body and then all of a sudden it's just like this like stick drawing of like the head and stuff that's kind of what some of these russes are like where it's like it's absolutely captivating watching and move out with the ice and then he gets in tight and it just kind of sort of

this like weak shot where it's like, all right, was that like a fourth liner that just released that one? Because it can't be the same guy that just did the five moves that preceded it. I'm not sure if you've noticed that as well. I wrote down on this notepad that in preparation for today's episode, make sure we talk about sacrificing velocity. Because I feel like, yes, I feel like it happens all the time. Or like he does, I don't know if I don't.

So a lot of times I feel he's looking for pass off pads, right? A lot of times I feel like that's the, the, there's almost this like you're right. I'm going to keep it ice surface level because he's going to the goalie's going to kick this out. He's too good. He's too good to be. Oh,

I agree with you. That shouldn't be his number one plan. No. Yeah. And I don't. And I feel like when he's looking for something or he's found something he likes, he sacrifices velocity for accuracy. Like I don't.

But what's crazy though is like you said, if he's planted on the left side, okay. And he's, let's say it's a power play. And he's got the ability to just pull that sucker back. never you don't see that you don't see like you said in controlled environments where he's expecting a cross-ice pass or he's open for a one-timer or he's audibly calling for the puck but he wants to take the shot grip it and rip it man like you're up let's see how far he could drive this sucker

on these other opportunities though you feel like especially in the rush you get the sense like he's seen something he likes he knows it's there and he's trying to be subtle he doesn't want to overdo it. A lot of times it seems like that thing is like five hole or just under the pad or he catches somebody who's like leaning one way or another. And like we said, he's very deceptive, right? So like you end up backing goalies up a lot. They're backing up because you're not, he's waiting. He's very patient. He's, he's upright. Vision is locked on the goalie. He's not giving a tell on what he's going to do next. Goleys back up and the deeper they get, the more easy, I think for me, anyway, the easier on me, I'm terrible.

but you get the idea theoretically, though ubiquitous me, you go five hole there, right? You can get some, you can catch them deep in their net. You know, Cindy Crosby, that's like his go-to shootout. That's the only movie has. But I get the sense, I wrote it down.

I mean, I 100% agree with you. I really feel like there's, it's almost, it looks very intentional to me. That it's like, you know, he found something he wants and he's trying to be very precise with it. But it, I think in the moment, it doesn't necessarily call for that level of precision and subtlety. Yeah.

I remember I've talked about us on the podcast before, but Daryl Belfrey worked with Nathan McKinnon on this, and it kind of coincided with his offensive explosion a handful of years ago where he was getting all of these opportunities with his speed and his neutral zone ability as a puck carrier, but then he would get in tight. And he was noting that like his, like the placement of his toe caps was kind of giving away

what he was going to do in a way, and that was neutralizing him. And so it was eliminating the options he had as a shooter. And then when they made these little adjustments using the video and then offseason training, he was able to become a much bigger threat on these rush shots and scored significantly more goals doing so because of that adjustment. And it feels like that is in Eichael's future or range of outcomes if it's handled accordingly. Now it's like a very nitpicky thing, right? But then you watch, he had four, five, six, I don't know how many odd man rush or breakaway

opportunities against the stars that easily could have been goals if handled differently, right? And so it's an issue to watch in the Stanley Cup final because I think it's normal to expect him to have positive regression. If he keeps getting this many chances, he's too talented not to finally start converting and scoring some goals. But the book on Bobrovsky, as you watched in the past two series, is he's going to stop everything down low. Like his pads are incredible.

He's going to kick everything out with force and get it out of harm's way. And so if Ikel gets these opportunities in the situations where he's won on one versus Brovsky, I do think he needs to make a better adjustment because that's probably not going to work against him. Yeah. I remember very early on into game one in that Western Conference final, when Jack Eichel was in the middle of making that like this series is going to be about me mostly statement, you know, and you're kind of watching him do these things and say like, oh man, like this is really

impressive. He, you know, I think he's exhibited a high ability to meet you to walk around the people, right? Especially at the defensive blue line when the gap gets tight with the opposing defenseman, he'll play the puck off the wall and step around, right? Or he'll, he'll just kind of like pull it to his back hand and squeeze through you in the boards. But any number of ways he could do it. He ends up with all these, we talked about like clean breaks. But I remember watching him, I thought that, you know, he walks around two stars players. He's cruising in. He's got a two-one-one, and it looked like he shot the puck with a 56 degree wedge. You know, he, like, makes the decision to pull it backhand and then, like, you know,

just give this, like, it's like a flutter opportunity. So you're right. I mean, if you look at the scouting report moving forward here, I don't think, I don't think his shot is like technically massively dynamic, right? Like, I don't think he's like a shooting, like a spoiled shooter. maybe I could use that term or like overly preferential in one way or another. I would just like to see him be a little bit more decisive. And it almost feels like with some of these chances,

Dimitri, like we all have that natural clock, that natural hockey clock, right? And it feels like that clock runs out and goes the other direction into the negative on a lot of these scoring chances for him when he's on the rush. Like you've exceeded the natural time that you've had to make a play, right? And now anything you do from this point after is, is, is, is, you know, you've kind of like wasted that time. Like you're at the point of no return now. So, you know, if he can continue to generate the chances at the rate that he did,

which is absolutely absurd, by the way, you know, you would have to think that, you know, a little bit more decisiveness. Decisiveness is going to put that puck in the net. No, certainly. I mean, the good, always the bad. And this might just be the player he is, right? Like he's a 10.7 shooter percent for his career, 10.2 this postseason.

it's kind of like right in line with who he's been. The one outlier was that 2019-20 season where he scored 36 goals and 77 games, shot 16%. And I remember at the time a lot of analysis from Buffalo was that he did start eliminating those like pillow passes, shooting it for a pass off the rebound, and actually trying to pick his spot and score. And that's why he was scoring more goals. And that was kind of an adjustment he made.

And then that wound up being sort of a one-year outlier because he's reverted back to what we're describing here, right? So it's certainly someone to watch. I mean, ultimately, if he's going to keep generating this many chances, good things will happen, whether it's rebounds or opportunities, just to territorially win the battle. And that's what we've seen, right? He's got the 18 points.

They're up 15 to 6 in his 5-1-5 minutes. Like, all of it is a massive net positive. I just thought it was kind of interesting. You want to talk more or not while we're on this note on the rush game about kind of how he's been a one-man transition machine or fast break so far. It's hilarious watching. You know, Corey Schneider puts out the, his like individual game scores, right, that include like shots, scoring chances, zone entries, zone eggs, it's all that good stuff, boil down into one and then ranks

it accordingly based on every player in the game. And pretty much every single Golden Knights game, you're going to see Jack Eichel at the absolute top. And it's because he keeps taking the puck from deep in his own zone and getting it into the offensive zone and setting up a scoring chance for himself or someone else. And it's kind of just like been quack work this postseason. Yeah, I feel like his ability to make subtle adjustments to his speed with his skates puts him at an advantage over virtually every defender he's going to come across in the Stanley Cup playoffs. And they're very like almost like little traction control adjustments that he's making where he'll kick an ankle out, right? And it just make a little subtle cut that slows him down just enough to change that tempo up on you and facilitate the move that he's about to make. I mean, I keep going back to his ability to walk and step and curl around.

players with that unique combination of styes and stick handling. You know, for me, this is all, all of this is all just tied together. Those subtle skate movements where he either goes to the races and speeds up really quickly in a very short, short distance to go around someone, or he's already moving at a high rate of speed and he puts those air brakes on real quick, just to change that tempo up on you. It's all those little things, I think, in the skating that help amount to all these clean entries, all these different rush attempts we've seen, all the sort of manipulation that

he can complete overentry, you know, that to me is the most fascinating part of all of it. You know, there's no predictability to it. It's very difficult as a defenseman to react to those subtle adjustments, right? I mean, if you're trying to keep your gap and you're skating backwards, you know, at a high rate of speed and somebody throws those brakes on you, slide harder for you to stop than it is for them. you're moving the wrong direction. So you can apply, you know, you can slow yourself down quickly, you know, you could do

all that, but it's so reactionary that you're already a step behind. And I just think those subtle movements and motions he makes with his feet are what enable him to complete, you know, not only these high level of entries overall to me, but the creativity and the high level of success he has with it. It's all tied back to that, I think. Yeah, he has been a zone entry machine. It's been a delight to watch how worried defenders, are about him, right? All of those different tricks that he's got in his bag, how he's able to

manipulate them into doing exactly what he wants. It really is that he's almost Jedi mind-tricking them, right? Because he's planted it in the back of the defender's mind that he's coming in with a lot of speed and he's got a ton of different moves that he can hit you with. So you're worried that he's going to do exactly that where he's going to take it out wide and drive it to the net and beat you cleanly that way. So defenders are respecting that. And that's exactly what I think he would actually prefer, because you see time and time again, what he's doing is as a right shot,

he's driving down the left wall into the zone. And then with the defender backing off and giving him that respect, he's able to have space now to do what he wants to do, which is stop up at the top of the zone, and then work his way into the middle of the ice while he's on his forehand. And that all of a sudden opens up the entire ice for him, right? because he can do kind of like a drop pass against the grain to a defender that's a trailer and they have a lot of open ice to attack downhill with and Shay Theodore has done that time and time

again this pose season. He can pass it to a march or so for a one time. He can do any, he can take a shot himself. He can do anything he wants from the middle of the ice. And so it's defensemen are just giving it to him time and time again. And that's exactly what he wants. And there's no right answer. I was talking on a previous show about how like I'd like to see defenders almost shade him one direction and be like, all right, well, if you're going to beat us off your backhand and do it, but I'm not going to let you just step into this forehand action. But as you said, moving backwards against that speed, it's very tricky to ask most defenders to do that. And in this series against the Panthers, beyond Augusta Foresling,

I don't really see a defender on the Panthers that I would trust to do that time and time again for as much as Montour has had a fantastic postseason. You don't want him moving backwards and being attacked with speed and expecting him to hold his own there as well. So it's going to be a nightmare matchup for them trying to contend with that bag of tricks that he has. And how many defensemen, Dimitri, can contend with him physically, right? I mean, I think that's really the thing to me that just whatever zone he's in, and I'm sure we'll get into the defensive zone with him later, but whatever zone he's in,

he is just a bearer to deal with physically. He's so huge. His wingspan is massive. And he preemptively strikes a lot. You know, I feel like forwards, you know, there are, there are a lot. lot of them, but it's maybe a little bit more rare to see them be the shark, you know. And I'll give you an example of what I mean by this. You're skating into a puck battle with him, right?

You're hip to hip with him. He's going to reach in, put his stick under yours and lift it over your shoulder, right? And you're going to have, it's now you're in a strength battle with Jack Eichel, where not only do you have to muscle him physically off the puck, right? You've got to get your stick out from underneath his and get to that loose puck before he does. And I just, you know, no refs calling interference on that. That's a part of loose puck races, right? It's an advantage that both defenders and forwards try to gain all the time.

You tie people up, try to make the puck inaccessible to them. But you just don't see, I think, forwards do it. And as I'll use the term again, shark like of a manner as Jack Eichael does, where, you know, he, yes, there's the physical engagement hip to hip. Yes, you have to find a way to lean him off the puck and take him down or move him off of it. very hard to do that. You also have to try to do that while he is being. Do every annoying trick in the book that a forward has. Chucking your stick up,

giving you the one quick whack so it bounces out of your hands. Like, you know, whatever it might be. Like I, you know, it's, you're constantly fighting multiple battles with him physically. I, you know, we've talked about all this skill stuff with him. But I just, at the end of the day, you know, a lot of this comes down to he's just bigger and stronger than a lot of people. and there's nothing that they can do about it. And, you know, go for the puck, I guess, right?

Like, what do you do? Like, you know what I mean? Make your stick wide, go for like those big sweeping poke checks, you know? And that's probably your best bet because they're not a lot of defensemen again out there that are going to win that one-on-one engagement with him. No, but that's a great point because if you are doing that, unless you time it perfectly, if you're leaning forward or leaning in and taking yourself off balance a little bit, he's strong enough where he can put the shoulder down

and just bowl right over you, right? and take advantage of you being kind of your center of gravity being off a little bit. So there's no, there's no right answer. And a lot of times we see a lot of self-preservation from these defenders where it's like, I'm just going to, I'm going to die by a thousand cuts here as opposed to just getting absolutely embarrassed and roasted one on one. And so it'll look less bad on film, but it's happening time and time again where it's like a big problem over a course of a series if he's winning these micro battles against you.

Jesse, let's put a pin. Let's take a break here. And then when we come back, we'll build on this. We'll talk more about his work off the puck of this postseason as well and a bunch of other stuff we've seen on tape. You're listening to the Hockey-Pedio cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. Breaking down the top stories in the NHL every day. The Jeff Maryshow.

Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back here in the Hockey Ocast, joined by Jesse Marshall. We're doing our Jack Eagel Film Club. We're having some fun here and nerd and out about what we're seeing on tape this postseason from him. Jesse, we've focused a lot on on the skill with the puck, right? And that's obviously the headliner, the main attraction with this. That's going to be the thing people are interested in. But what's separated in this postseason and what's really been a point of emphasis

has been his work off the puck, right? Especially the job this team has been able to do under Bruce Cassidy, first against the Edmonton Oilers, a round two, then against the Dallas Stars, two of the most challenging and dynamic in very specific ways. offensive teams we have in this league. And it's obviously been a team effort, right? The defensive structure in their own zone. But Eichol's work individually off the puck has been exemplary as well.

And I think is warranting a nice little conversation and kind of like emphasis here from us as well. Yeah. And I think that like, you know, there's a great bit of intention behind it, I think, right? You can find him out there making these individual efforts on the puck or on players who have the buck to win it back and create opportunity for his team, which is like the goal of defense. That's what it's all about. On that layer, though, like you see him, you know, being in lanes, laying out to block shots, right?

Like all of the other classic stuff that you expect to have like good buy in on from forwards, like is there as well. And I think that like, let's just be honest, you know, systematically, defensively, you know, sometimes for forwards, defense is just so much about being in an area, right? and being present in an area and accounting for it and holding responsibility for it. And I think Jack Eichol just takes that to like a very territorial level, you know, like where if you're, you know, he's not just going to like shadow you in your area. He's going to make physical contact with you, right?

He's going to do some of that annoying stuff we mentioned before. They stick lifting and, you know, getting, getting in your craw and being annoying. It's, it's, there's a level of engagement that I think is beyond what you would expect from a forward that leads to a lot of really positive results. And I think also probably Dimitri lead to him stepping outside the box he's supposed to be in sometimes to anticipatorily win loose puck battles and step out to help a teammate that's at a disadvantage. And, you know, I think this all, you can sum this all up with being a driver in the

defensive zone as opposed to a passenger, right? Constantly heading to where there's trouble being engaged physically. It's, you know, that his, his ice. is tough ice. And you've got to work for it when you're in his area. He's taken and robbed a lot from opposing talented, opposing forwards. And sort of his, you know, again, less reactionary and more proactive approach in terms of playing defense. Well, and what a luxury it is for Bruce Cassidy to essentially have either him playing at this level defensively,

Mark Stone or William Carlson on the ice at all times because they're all amper. their own lines. I mean, it's not an accident why they've been so successful and why they've been so stingy defensively. And, you know, what's really stuck out to me watching these games is particularly how they've been able to dominate the neutral zone in both directions against the Oilers and the stars, right? For all of the firepower, those teams respectively have to have to work with. They've essentially been able to entirely neutralize them for large periods of games. Every game they won almost, they've decisively won in the neutral zone. And what stuck out to me is, is for all the, you know, they have a good blue line, not necessarily the most mobile,

like perfectly functional, but they all are able to look faster than they are and be more aggressive in gaping up and stepping up as zone entry defenders because Eichel's effort backtracking and providing back pressure is squeezing puck carriers, right? So if you're an opposing forward, you have to not only worry about who's in front of you, but all of a sudden, Eichol's bearing down on you. He's got that reach. He's got that strength,

as we mentioned, and the speed, of course. And so he's able to eliminate you from behind as well. And so it's forcing a lot of dump-ins. It's taking these teams completely out of their element. And that's someone to watch for as we look ahead to the Stanley Cup final as well, because for all the talk about how the Panthers are, you know,

this more well-rounded, diverse team and how they're being gritty and all that. And they are, there's still a dominant rush team and have been all season. And that's going to be much more difficult to get those opportunities in transition against Vegas if they keep playing the way they have and the way Ikel has in particular. Yeah.

He plays really well with his backed people. So there's like, I feel like, you know, in forechecking in neutral zone alignment, like all the glory comes with being that guy that's up at the top and stirring it up or sometimes that's two players, right? Sometimes it's, you know, it's multiple players. But, you know, that's often the player that's up there generating the turnover. But I think Jack Eichol has been really good at Demetriot. If you watch across the whole playoffs, you can see him do this.

It's not just against one team. But he'll sink back and have a very acute awareness and sense of time and space of where the opportunities for a pass are going to be. And he's almost like a safety sitting deep that's coming up and waiting to pounce on a route. He plays. That's what I mean. What I'm saying, he plays really well with his back to people. you know, if you think about the other team breaking out, you know, he's facing the breakout defenseman, the forwards that he's worried about are behind him, but he knows where they're going, right? So he knows that point of pass, that point of criticality on the other team's breakout. It allows him to kind of make a cut in either direction on where that pass is going to go and sort of proactively jump on it.

That's not as that's not as highlight real sometimes worthy as being the guy up at the key in the forecheck and, you know, pouncing on defense and making him cough, pucks up. up and stuff like that. But I think it's harder to do it this way. You know, I think it's harder to do it to Jack Eicholay because you got to, it requires a lot of hockey IQ. You got to know the other teams break out. You got to know where the lanes are. You know, it's not necessarily, you know, I keep going back to the physical element,

Demetrius is there, but it's not always that. It's also the brain and, you know, being able to know where people are in your peripherals and sense them behind you in a way that allows you to pick these routes off and go the other direction. Yeah. And it's a lot of physical effort. well, right? Like, he's got to get on his horse and scoot. And I think it helps that they've been able to manage his ice time as well because of the depth of this team and how well-rounded they are.

Right. If you look at it, there was points when he was playing in Buffalo because of their lack of depth where he was eating up just massive amounts of ice time. And you look now this, this regular season, it was career lows 14, 16 at 515 per game, 1846 all situations. In this postseason, he's playing just 14, 12 at 515 per game, 1919 overall. That leads all. Vegas forwards, but that's not in the grand scheme of things compared to some other top forwards and how heavily they're relied on their own teams. That's not nearly as much, right? And so it's a lot easier, I think, to exert absolute max effort on every single shift when you're playing 18, 19 minutes tonight as opposed to 22 to 24. Yeah, I think it's also

easier to do that when you're spending more time in the offensive zone too, right? Certainly helps. Yeah, when you're when you're when you're leading the chase and making the other team do the chasing as opposed to doing the chasing. That is a, you know, that's a huge difference in mentality and in physical exertion. So it's, yeah, I'm with you, man. I think it's, there's a, there's a real economy to what he does too, right? Where I don't, you never see him sort of like, we keep going back to this, he can play the game, you know, steps ahead of other people.

I think that saves him a lot of time and effort too. And, you know, not skating to places that are, aren't a threat or having to relocate. there's an angle of efficiency to this conversation we probably ought to be having as well in terms of like I think Jack Jack Eichol knows the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, right? So there's not really, I don't think it's a lot of conventional routes. It's a lot of gliding into max acceleration with no no stops in between, right? And so when I say gliding, I don't mean to make it sound like he's being lazy and he's

kind of just like, you know, doing basically skating laps, warm-up laps out there. But he's like waiting and then all of a sudden, if a puck becomes available or he's like, all right, this is an opportunity for me to attack, he goes right into it. There's no messing around and making a meal of it, right? And so I think that's important. And this is happening at every single point of the ice. Like I think if you mapped whether it was a puck battle win or a play he created something from or took the puck away from an opponent, you could fill the entire ice surface this

postseason. And often we, I think it's kind of lazy the way we discuss 200 foot players because generally there's very few players who actually at any point on the ice in all three zones are equally impactful. You generally are like pinching your nose a little bit in one zone and then they're really good in another and they're passable in another and they're fine. And it's rarely the way it is. But for I call the season where I actually feel equally confident in all three zones, I'm sure like as you mentioned. less in a defensive zone because they just haven't had to be there as often. But he's been

equally impactful everywhere across the ice surface and that's pretty cool to watch. And like I, you know, I'm not here to say that forwards have the ability to ride off the defensive coattails and trappings of their defensive, you know, their defensive teammates. But you, the point I'm trying to make here,

Demetri, is and you've made clips of it, so you know this. A lot of this juice is him, right? Like you watch the tape and it's it's him that's that's, you know, creating the takeaway that gets the puck out of the defensive zone. Or it's him that, that, that,

that, you know, made that subtle body check that knocks someone off the puck and has allowed his teammate to go get it. Or, you know, whatever it is. It's him that made like a little area pass, you know, there's so much that,

that he's the driver of here, um, that, you know, it's not, you know, there's a, we keep using,

I use the term conductor. We were talking about offensive, uh, stuff and the way he drives play on that end. But that's just true for the defensive side as well. I feel like there's being a passenger, right, or there's just doing the bare minimum or enough to get by. And I think you reflect that in the data.

That reflects in the results. And then there's this, which is like, which is totally driving the play in all three zones and eating up ice, right? Really, really forcing the other team to account for the area that you've got to cover and being a real bare. to their success there. You know, that I can't speak enough about that being his role in all of this and how much it comes off of his stick.

And it shows in the video. But these, the data in the video here are, are completely in marriage. They're not dish, or form. They line up exactly the way you would expect them to, you know, based on what you see, whether you're looking at the data or the on ice product. And again, to go back to it, so much of this. is physical, right? It's based off of the, you know, like Mike Roe would do an episode of dirty jobs

about Jack Eichol's work in the defensive zone. He's not shying away from doing the nasty stuff. And it's a lot of like that classic two-step process, Dmitri, right? And what I mean by that is step into the guy, initiate physical engagement, bring your stick in and disengage the puck, right? Like that is like clinics teach us to children, right? And that's all it is, but it's just executed at such a high level and he's such a monster to do what size-wise. That, you know, again, it's a thing to behold, if you haven't really been paying attention to his work defensively, sit down and just watch him for a shift because he's running, you know, it's effective checking.

You know, there's useless. I think checking is a statistic we would both agree is not only poorly tracked, but oftentimes indicative of you not having the puck. Like this, people weren't sitting up in a booth upstairs and like furiously scribbling down every time. Jack Eichael does this because it's not, you know, traditionally count it as a check. But it's a level of physical engagement that for me defines checking way with the old traditional sort of like, you know, early 90s conception of the term is. Well, you know what I'm excited about in the Stanley Cup final amongst many other things. So far this run, Bruce Cassidy has done such a good job of pushing all the right buttons

from a match of a perspective. And I've been documenting it every step of the way on the show. but if you look at the last two series, he got him out there a lot against like Essel and Dell's pair in the West Final and then Cody Cece and Darno Nurse in the second round, right? And getting them away from both Hinson and MacGabed because William Carlson has been soaking up those assignments, right?

And that's not a knock on him, but that's just speaking of harmonious between individual and team. It's all kind of come together and they have the right personnel to execute that game plan. Now, in this series against Florida, they haven't really bumped into a team yet with the variety of options up front that the Panthers have in the sense that I assume Vegas is not going to want to have his line out there that much against Matthew Kachuk's line. I assume that's going to be more of a William Carlson job. Now, if that's the case, that means Eichol's either going to go up against Sasha Barakov, who's also having a phenomenal defensive postseason, or he's going to go. go up against this like Lundell, Reinhart, Lusterina line, which is just wrecked havoc

defensively on other teams as well this postseason. And so there's going to be an entirely different unique challenge for him to sort of try to assert a lot of these things we've been talking about in that series. And I'm excited to see it because this is, it's the Stanley Cup final, right? You want to be the champion? This is the final test, the final hurdle. And you're going to have to beat the best. And he's going to have to go up against some really, really good players and win those minutes for Vegas to win the series. Yeah. And I think, too, he is going to be forced to face situations that I think are, when you go back and look at, you know, Vegas's path here, have they gone against a forecheck like this? That affects forwards too, right? That that high

level of intensity, constant in your face approach to breaking the puck out of the zone. You know, we've talked this whole show, Dmitri, about how the onus has been on Eichol to do the work, He's taking it from deep within the defensive zone, off to the races, getting it in through across the blue line with possession and then keeping it alive. Boy, it's really difficult to do that against this a layered forecheck that Florida brings. This is going to significantly test that. So we talk about his ability to be a conductor, you know, to keep that connection between the offense and the defense. That's so critical to what Vegas has done. And that's all Florida does is work to take that away from you.

They took it away from Boston, robbed them of it. They took it away. They really took it away. I thought from Toronto. And, you know, Toronto still found ways to find opportunities to eat, but it wasn't in the conventional ways. They probably preferred. And I think that, you know, that, you know, again, I don't want to paint

Eichel as this guy who needs time and space because he's creating it himself. And he's worked his way through really difficult tight spaces all playoff long. I just think that it's going to be ratcheted up in a way that he's not yet seen in this final. and that's that's what florida's all about um that's that's a great game within the game that's that's regardless you know i i think you're 100 percent spot on the personnel side here like that's going to be an interesting side of it but i think regardless of who he's going against they're all going to take the same approach right this layered four check style that they there's up tempo high high pressure in the f1 uh style they play isn't going away and it's really going to challenge all the things that jack

ikel has preferred to do so far in this run yeah it'll be a unique challenge i'm excited to see it The one last thing that I just cannot reconcile here, though, is how inexplicably bad their power play continues to be, just based on the personnel they have, right? Like, we talk about how Eichel has all these tricks and ability to be a dual threat from that flank. They've got Jonathan Marshall. So is more of a trigger man on the opposite flank. Theodore conducting at the point, Stone kind of work in that net front slash goal line job really well. And yet, for whatever reason, you put it all together and the results just continue to not be there. I think they're scoring like 6.6 goals per hour on the power play so far this postseason.

And that's an issue heading into this series because Florida's penalty kill has not been that good either and is very, very there for the taking. But we haven't seen anything on the tape from Vegas to give us confidence that they can win those minutes as decisively as they probably should and other teams have so far against Florida. So I just, I don't know, it's just one of those things where the pieces for whatever reason, just do not add up to what you'd expect because individually, I'm like, I like a lot of what's going on here. but then you watch them play and it just doesn't make any sense at all. Yeah. I think too that they run into a lot of problems to be true that a lot of other teams and that structure run into where they get stuck up, they get stuck upstairs, right?

And they're playing in that high key of the zone and they can't ever work down that puck down low and find like consistent success down there. You know, Jack Eichle's got a lot of chances on the power play, you know, with that like cycloneish circular motions that he gets into where he tries to run it into the slot over and over again. I mean, that's a great motion. If you could find a way to feed that, you have players that can facilitate it,

you know, make him the central focus of it. I think that's that that you need something to give you direction in the lower half of the offensive zone because I think right now it's just too easy to push that power play up high. It is. I'm excited to see if it can break through a little bit if he himself can score some more goals. He leads Vegas, as I said, points with AT and anybody's going to need to turn some of these chances into goals if they're going to win and if he's going to, you know, put a stamp on it to win that Khan Smyth and this whole like redemption arc of of his health and finally playing his first

posies and in putting it all together. I'm excited to watch it. I think that's a big storyline to be excited for this, this Stanley Cup final. Jesse, this was a blast. I'm really glad we got to do this finally. And hopefully the listeners enjoyed it. I'll let you quickly let the listeners know what you've been working on where they can check you up.

I'm working on nothing right now, man. I'm going to sit down. I'm going to watch the Stanley Cup final and enjoy it. That's exactly what I'm going to do. And that's it. Yeah. Well, I'll be posting videos of whatever it is that, you know,

like the last last series, it was Ryan Suter walking off into the wilderness. We'll find something similar to talk about in the Stanley Cup final, I'm sure, Dimitri. Well, looking forward to it. The thing I'll blog is if you enjoy this and you want to see some of these clips we've been talking about because in the past,

I've had people respond on Twitter and be like, is there a visual medium of this? And hopefully next year, you and I, when we get together to do this, able to actually do it as more of like a broadcast where people can watch along with us while we're breaking these plays down. But for the time being, I've put up a five-minute mixtape of Jack Uncle plays exclusively from the West Final. It's the Stars on YouTube that I

recommend you go check out. I've got other videos there of Maddicka Cuch, Sam Reinhart, so on and so forth that you'll enjoy, I'm sure. And it's random little clips too, right? It's like stuff in the defensive zone that you're not going to see on any highlight reel. So if you enjoy this, you will like that. And we'll be back tomorrow with our Stanley Cup final. preview. So looking forward to that. In the meantime, thank you, Jesse, for taking the time. Thank you to the listeners for listening to the HockeyPedocast, as always streaming on the SportsNet Radio Network.