The Hockey PDOcast - Film Club on Logan Cooley's Start to the Season

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Jesse Marshall to dive into the tape on Logan Cooley this season, breaking down the strides he's already made in his second year, and the areas he can continue to improve in. 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.

It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedocast. My name is Dmitri Filipovich, and joining is my good buddy, Jesse Marshall. Jesse, what's going on then? Good to be back. First one of the year. Ready to go. First one of the year.

First of many. So we're bringing back our film club series, which we've done over the past couple of years. And before we jump into it, I wanted to introduce or kind of revisit the concept in the format because it's the first one we've done this. season, as you just mentioned, and I'm sure we've got some new listeners here that have tagged along the way. So what Jesse and I are going to do here is we essentially pick a player and then we go through everything we're seeing on tape from them. Now, if you listen to us on the

radio or on your preferred podcast app, that's great. Please continue doing so. But if you want to get an even additional or bonus experience, you can watch along with us on the PEOCast YouTube channel as well. And that'll be even better for you, I think, because as you'll see it, as we go along, we're going to show you video evidence of the concepts we're talking about, and I think that'll kind of help you better absorb what we're saying. And also, I wanted to note that our most recent review of the show was from Yadu in Finland, and he gave us four stars. And he said, five stars when it's also available on YouTube. So Yadu, you're in luck. You can watch us on YouTube, and hopefully you'll revise your rating to five stars. And that's a reminder for everyone.

If you haven't given us five stars yet, wherever you listen, please do so now. With that out of the way, Jesse, our subject today is Logan Cooley. And let's get into it. What kind of stands out to you when you watch his tape, when you watch his clips, when you watch this Utah Hockey Club play in general? So, you know, his legs are what drive this entire experience for me. Just these unbelievably powerful bursts that take him from zero to a thousand immediately. It's, you know, the legs feed the wolf, I guess, is that adage I'd use in this situation.

he can hit space so fast. And when he's coming through the neutral zone, when he's in the offensive zone, he uses his speed in a way where he's not bound by this like positional restraint, right? He is literally everywhere all at once. And he takes the puck on these really long journeys north-south through the offensive zone where he's creating space or eating up time or letting his teammates get open. It all culminates. These journeys all culminates. in him making some just unbelievable puck distribution plays, right? It's all eyes on me. He has a tendency to just get all 10 eyes of the opposing team to follow him.

He's playing with some really talented players like Dylan Genther's just unbelievable shooter. He's got a great release. So you've coolly sort of using the entire offensive zone to his advantage with this really powerful stride that allows him to break away from his opponents in a really quick fashion and change up the tempo frequently. and keep these opponents guessing. And again, it's almost like he's magnetizing the opposition to himself, taking again these really long traversing journeys through the offensive zone,

but with the intention of distributing the puck at the last possible moment or when you least expect it to a wide open teammate. So I think the struggle for a lot of good players, Dimitri, earlier in their career, is they're too bound by their position, right? They don't want to take these ventures. out of their, where they should be quote unquote, air quotes there, to where a scoring area is, and they kind of box themselves in a little bit. Cooley is unboxed in every facet of the game.

And I love, you know, it's almost like when he gets going, Dimitri, it's like the lower half of his body is separate from the upper half. It's moving so quickly, right? It's very McDavid, like, doesn't have that speed. I want to be very clear, but the acceleration is there. Those first two or three steps are all power. and they're not long, they're not choppy in any way. If he is getting from point A to point B in a very quick fashion,

that allows him to terrorize people in all three zones, and it's the skating that drives that. Yeah, it makes sense. I'm glad you started with that. It makes sense that this would be the case considering he's 20 years old, and he most importantly, I think, got to make most of a full off season after getting an initial first taste of the NHL last year, right? You kind of like, you go through that first rodeo,

and then you figure out what works, what does and what you need to improve on, and then get back into the lab. But with that said, I don't want to take that for granted because kudos to whatever regimen he was on or whoever he was training with this summer, because I just can't, whatever you turn on his tape this year, what I can't help a notice immediately is how visibly faster and stronger. He looks right out of the gate. And I'm glad you kind of describe that acceleration as burst because you've already seen

this year how he's sort of leveraging that to make a point. opponent's uncomfortable with and without the pot, right? And I think in particular, where it's really paying dividends is you're seeing it on the PK so far. I know that's kind of a bit of an odd place for me to start because this is a young, highly skilled, eventual, like really high-end point producer, right, even if he hasn't gotten there yet. But the utility he's already providing on the PK where last year he plays about 31 minutes in 78 games as a rookie. This year, he's already up to average in about a minute per game short-handed and looks really good doing so to my eye, right? It's kind of this modern P-King of using his speed to disrupt puck carriers,

to pursue pucks, to knock them off the session, and then send them back and kill time in doing so, right? And we've already had a couple sequences that we're going to see here on the clips where he does exactly that. Like he essentially just as a one-man show breaks up whatever entry plan or neutral zone sequence that the opposing power play is planning on and then kills 30 seconds in the process, sends it back, gets off the ice. And that's such a valuable skill already for a young player. So to go along with all the offensive tools we're going to highlight and put on display here, I think already kind of showing at least the rough edges of that being in his bag as well is kind of makes him such a well-rounded player. That's something that's pretty rare for a guy at this stage of his

career. Yeah, 100%. You don't often see those young players, especially when they're as skilled to see as offensively get trusted with those defensive assignments on the penalty kill this early in their career, as you pointed out. I think everything you just said about the penalty kill is also applicable to overtime. He's been a nightmare for people in overtime, where there's that much room out there and there's that much space. There's no respite for you. He gets to chasing you down. The next thing you know, you're behind your own net, right? And he's just terrorizing you from the back end. And it's multi-directional, too. You know, we talk about this burst.

A lot of what I watched in the highlights and going through the tape on him was a back-checking. We have to talk about that, too. And I agree with everything you said about the power kill style. But, man, you know, when he's deep in that offensive zone and that play breaks out the other way, he can cover so much ground in such a short period of time. And he has an extremely active stick, an extremely active stick that he uses legally to dis possess people from the puck almost constantly, right? And again, I go back to this acceleration of those first two or three steps. He just bakes up so much ground that I don't think people have any reason to be

tangentially aware of the fact that he may be coming from behind. I mean, if you're, if you're grabbing the puck at the blue line and heading up ice with it and you see him behind the net, you're not worried about Logan Cooley catching up to you by the time you cross the offensive blue line and that's exactly what's happening. So it just seems to take people by surprise, you know, and his forechecking presence is so aggressive, and he stays on people for such an extended length. You know, it gives them hiccups, you know, they become afraid, you know, forcing defensemen into making decisions that they just simply aren't comfortable with, passes that they're not ready to make, forcing them to make area plays. He's got a lot of really quick

teammates, and what you see is when he starts hunting people down, they're not, they're not discernibly putting the puck on the stick of someone. They're throwing it to an area and thinking, hey, my teammate might have a good crack at this. That's preferable to then tape to tape outlet passes for a dozen reasons. So, you know, it's even if he's not getting there and necessarily dispossessing you of the puck, it's just that mere sort of overwhelming presence that's always there, you feel rushed. And I think if you watch over the course of the game, you know, defensemen that he sees, you know, five, six, seven, eight times a night, you know, when he's on the ice,

they're making quick, you know, interrupted decisions in the defensive zone. just to get the thing away from him and keep him off their backs. Yeah, we're watching this overtime shift in particular that he had a lot of the attention, and even on my Twitter feed, as I'm sure you saw the time, whatever it was a week or two ago, against the Islanders when Dylan Gunther scores that beautiful overtime winner, right? He displays that wristier. We could talk about that a little bit as well on how that works in tandem with Cooley's passing, but that got most of the publicity and attention, right?

Because that's the goal, that's the sort of high-end scale that we appreciate. If you backtrack and watch that full sequence, though, what really stands out is, I mean, first, Cooley, just Badgers, both Warbat into essentially just having to leave the zone, even though he has possession, right? And then he goes all the way deep into the other team's zone. Badgers, I believe it's Ryan Pluck or I forget who makes them make a mistake. And then on the Gunther goal, it's his middle lane net drive

that completely pushes Semian Varwamo back and forces them into an, comfortable position and in comes able to take control, right? And so those are the types of things already off the pot. These are like little details where he's leveraging a high-end skill he has, which is a skating at his burst, and then doing so to disrupt and attack, right? I really love seeing that especially. Here's the other thing, too. I know we've talked a lot about his speed so far and for good reason, but you watch the beginning of this penalty kill and look at his hands. It's not just that he's breathing down the neck of these guys. He is actively harassing them with his stick. He's getting his arms in there. He's trying to lift their arms. He's whacking and pending their

sticks down. It's that level of activity. It's not just the presence. It's not just him being there. I mean, he is harassing these folks. It's this, this is, that's you want that. I mean, it's those, it's those moments where, you know, you're trying to break the puck out as a defenseman. Somebody comes in, gives you that quick stick lift. Your concentration is on getting the pup back, right? Your concentration is on, you know, the stick in your side or, or, or, trying to lift your arm up. It's not where you're going with the puck, right? And he's just so distracting as a player with that presence and that reach and that active stick. You see him constantly getting it down in a lane or it's constantly in that disruption mode where his arms are down. He's on

the ice level and he's primed to make a deflection on anything that you're about to do. So the legs get him there, right? But he's taking that next step action of causing even more disruption with his stick and constantly being active with it. That's the part to me. me that also stands out of years, that really ratchets the panic level up for a defenseman, right? When you're already there physically, presently, and they know it, and you start getting into them, lifting their arms up, lifting their stick, giving them a couple, you know, non-callable wax as they skate out, that's the total package. This is why we work as a duo, Jesse, because I'm here focusing on the lower body and I'm like,

check this out. And then you're like, actually, let's also look at the upper body and give that a bit of love here as well. And I think that's a really good shout on your part. The one final note that I have on his skating, and I don't mind belabor in this point, because I do think it has been so eye-popping this season and also the thing that's going to open the most doors for him as a player is you mentioned kind of like how he catches defenders by surprise and his skating stride. And I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the mechanics there and kind of how he's deploying that, right? Because there was that instance that you see here against the Bruins where he essentially turns Hamas Linholm into a practice pilot, right? Like his ability

to go from zero to 100 in that quick burst acceleration. And it looks like such a long stride on his part, right? Like he takes these kind of like circuitous looping route sometimes as a player and really utilizes the full width of the ice. His ability to go outside, inside in that way and just take it to the net is really impressive to me, right? It feels like, I mean, clearly not on the level as skater of the McDavid's and the McKinnon class, certainly.

But his ability to hit this gear, while he's accelerating an open ice is right up there in terms of I think striking fear and defenders as all the top guys in the league, right? Like if he catches you in your back foot like that, you're basically out of luck. You hope your goalie bails you out or your partner

is there to sort of clean up the mess because you're not going to be able to actually cover the same amount of ground he does once he has that open space and he's really moving the wheels. And if you watch it, Dimitri, it's how low he can get. It's his posture, right? But if you watch this clip, he attacks hip as lima hold with speed as soon as his hips turn, right? As soon as he sees the defense would turn his hips and

he knows that there's going to be that moment in time where they're going to have to sacrifice momentum and speed to turn and face him, it's over. You can't recover from that. It's just too fast. It's the posture of, it almost looks like he's sitting in a chair when he's skating. He gets that low base, right? And his legs move so fast. That's the thing. He's got an immense amount of power in these really short staccato bursts. And it looks like the roadrunner from the old, you know, the old cartoons back in the day with Wiley Coyote where his bottom half would just spin like this and he would take off. It's very much strikes me as the same sort of thing.

And posturally speaking, it's perfect for his size. And it's timed so well. And I think what you see is, you know, he begins to use that in an advantage where, you know, he's got you turned around, you're struggling to keep up, and then he puts the brakes on, right? And now you're playing catch up to him because he just created five to 10 feet of space from himself by stopping on a dime, changing the tempo up. And there's your time and space. So I have to mention that because it's so, again, unique for a young player to already have those tools to create time and space for themselves in a league that's this physical and this fast. He's figured it out. He's got it down pat. And I think also using opposite motion of his teammates, like in these clips we see a lot of him grabbing the puck.

from the low end and then moving low high and skating up by the offensive blue line, right? This is what happens in these, in almost all of these situations, Dimitri, right? He goes low to high. People follow him, right? People, they shouldn't necessarily be doing that, but they are. And then it's too much nature, too, that guy's a little bit like that. Exactly. And then the next thing you know, his wings open on the other side and he's got a wide open lane

to distribute it. So, you know, it's a two-step process. You get the control of the tempo, the puck distribution, but now he's also moving back against the grain. He has to go from high to low, right? He's up high in the zone when he's distributing these pucks. He gets lost in the fray heading back into the offensive zone. He's camouflaging himself essentially, right? It goes from all eyes on him to no eyes on him once he distributes that puck. And now he's just in the fray. And if you don't mark him appropriately, that pass he just made is coming right back to him. They've perfected the art of tick-tac-toe in this control of tempo approach that they take.

And that's very hard to deal with as a defense. You have absolutely no idea what's coming next. Well, the thing that's going to serve them really well is often we see young players when they enter that HL and they have this type of skating ability and skill. They're going to succeed in more sort of open, open game environments, right? Like off the rush when they get into these games against maybe lesser opponents and they can really sort of utilize that with great repetition. And then you get into these more competitive games against better teams or stingier defensive teams. And all of a sudden, if those opportunities aren't available or if you do get them and don't capitalize on them, then you don't have much else to sort of lean back on.

And then that's why I think we see a lot of young players post really poor underlying metrics and a 5-15 on nice numbers, right? Because you get that initial look, but you have no way of sustaining possession or punishing the opposition off of extended sequences in the offensive zone and actually keeping the puck there. And something that's really stood out to me, and this goes kind of part and parcel with that skating is he's been really good at retrieving pucks. And I think part of that is skating. Part of that is like the offensive instincts he has of like kind of going where he thinks the puck is going to go as opposed to where it already is. And so he's getting a quick step on you as a defender and he's utilizing that. But I think we've already seen where all of these kind of low, low cycle plays with Gunther and McBade and then the Utah, I don't love it as much, but they really, seem to prefer to run their offense at 515, low to high, where they like to work it up to the point, and then when Jersey's healthy and Surgachev and even Kesselring, kind of bomb away from the point and then try to retrieve it and do it all over again, right? And he's kind of helped fuel that as well with a lot of these retrievals, being the first guy to the puck, that forecheck you mentioned, kind of disrupting and causing turnover, is that allow them

to stand the offensive zone. And we've seen it a little bit so far where I remember last year when he first came into the league before he was playing with Gunther, his 5-15 numbers were really poor, right? Like, he was putting up some points and having some highlight real plays, but he was getting caved in on a team that was clearly struggling itself amidst all the turmoil of leaving Arizona and all of that that we've already documented. So far this year, he's hanging around that 50% work and a lot of 5-1-5 metrics, and that's really good to see. It's obviously not necessarily anything to write home about, but when you talk about all this other stuff and the skill, if you have that in your bag as well,

that's the sustainability that we like to see. It's not just a one-trick pony, but he's all of a sudden showing that he can beat you offensively in many different ways, and that's really important to have early in your career. Yeah, agreed.

I also think that he's, so there's two things I would say here. One, they're playing more hockey offensive zone, which is contributing to the increase in those numbers, right? They're playing less a defense by proxy of playing more offense,

but I think additionally, Dimitri, I don't think this is a player who was unwilling to participate defensively before. I think he was a player was just maybe a little bit too overzealous in it, right? We mentioned he's got the speed.

He likes to participate in all three zones. I think it's been a lot more refined this year, where you see him attacking a lot more defensively on whatever his assignment is and being a little bit more contained. We already talked about how harassing of a player he can be on the back check. I think he's done a much better job in his own zone. He doesn't play a super impactful defensive position necessarily, but I think at the end of the day,

there's been tangible marketing improvements for him in that space. I think he's gotten a lot better at controlling how much real estate he eats at the defensive zone. Yeah, just a tough cover, man. He's constantly moving, and you've already seen that that Bruins game was a great highlight out there where I think he drew a couple penalties. And that one you could see that the Bruins defenders were just, and they're like naturally just bigger in stature. And those are types of players that I think he's going to really irritate because he's just getting like underneath their reach and kind of forcing them into these, compromising positions. He drew a couple penalties, so they were getting very frustrated. So I love to see that all when I think he's drawn four penalties this year after drawing 26 last year as well.

I don't think it's like, I want to keep this balance, right? Because I think it's still a young player who still had flaws in his game, who still has ways to improve and to grow certainly. And that's very encouraging because I really already like what I see from him. You think it's fair to say like, and this is true for a lot of 20-year-olds, like I think the one area he can still improve is a combination of obviously just still getting even stronger, adding to what he did this year, but also kind of picking his spots a little bit better offensively. I've noticed a few times where, and we're going to talk about his shot and maybe the rate there and how that can improve, where he kind of skates himself into trouble. And I don't think this is unique to him. This is

kind of like a common theme for a lot of young players where you have these great intentions, you're coming into the zone with space. You're like, all right, I'm going to do a flashy spin move here. I'm going to do this kind of crossover and then I'm going to complete the highlight real play. And then you bump into a really good defender and they don't give you that first initial look that you wanted. And then you skate yourself into a little bit of trouble. I've noticed a few times this year where he can kind of skate too close to the boards and then a strong defender just essentially pins him up against there and he's able to instantly kill the possession. There was a play we don't have here because we only have the clips from the first six games he's played. And that doesn't include the two most recent ones, including Thursday nights.

against Colorado. There was a play in second period where he's challenging DeBan Taves 101 and how DeBan Taves is arguably the best, right there with Jacob Slaven as like the best one-on-one defender in the game. And he sticks with him stride for stride. The spin movie tries doesn't work. And then all of a sudden, DeBan Tavent just forcefully pins against the board, possessions over, as are coming back the other way. And so I think through tactics and through just like own individual strength improvements, that's an area that I think he can still get better at. And I think he will. But it's just the reality of this generation right now. for a 20 year old. Yeah, I would 100% agree with that. And the thing is, too, is it's worked enough

for him that I think he's not so shy in trying it as much possible because he gets away with it sometimes, right? He, his, I think where he's at his most elusive, Dimitri is when he retrieves a puck in transition with like maybe a five, six, seven foot cushion in front of a defenseman, because he can hit that seam so fast. And if he's got 2D, he can split them so quickly and catch them off guard. I agree with you. It does try to hit those seams quite frequently. And again, like you said,

when you have this bigger, stronger defenseman that could get hard to do. The benefit that he has to getting stronger and building up on what he's already done in the off season, and his head is always up. I mean, he's constantly surveying. What I love about him is in puck retrieval situations.

You'll routinely see him like, you know, picking the head behind his shoulder, right? Like giving the ice a really good survey before he makes a play with it. Those are all, you build off that, right? I mean, one of the reasons that he's so tough to knock off the puck sometimes is his feet, you're always moving, his head is up and he's got the puck extended, you know, with his body protecting it. I think that's when he's at his best.

I think like you said when there's times where he gets away from that or he's got it a little bit too close to the vest, it gets a little bit easier for him. He loses that base. He loses that center of grab. That's what happens. And it becomes a lot easier to move him around in those situations. But, you know, there are a little bit. lot of times where he's got so much speed, you see somebody to come up and try to get physical

with him and he just bounces off the boards and keeps going, right? So I think it does present a challenge for people, but I think a little bit more, like you said, discernment, right? We'll come with time and I think get him into a position where he's a little more patient. I think it's shot selection is another one. I don't know if you touched on this a bit ago, right? But he does like to throw that thing through traffic. So if he's got it in the defenseman's feet and he has the opportunity to kind of pull it back and let one rip. You know, I get it. You know, those aren't bad decisions.

But when you're one on three, you know, maybe try to eat it and wait for some help, right? And it gets a little bit harder to maintain possession in those situations when you're trying to chase down a loose puck and you don't have any team meets around. So I think that that's the other thing. I don't know that his shot's good. I, right, Demetre, but I don't think we haven't really spent a lot of time on it for a reason. And it's because it's not otherworldly, right? It's not so good that I think he can be willing to sacrifice possessions for individual shooting chances in the face of like one odd man situations where he's at a disadvantage, right? There's that live to fight another day in Mancher, I think, that comes along with being a young player.

I certainly think that he'll have a heaping dose of that as he matures, but 100% agreeance there. Let's put a pin in the shot thing because I want to get into mechanics and all that with you in a second. Just the one final note, like I think that. that small area game is probably one of the biggest adjustments other than maybe off-puck, depending stuff for young players of this profile, right? Because when you're playing, you're the most talented guy and you can just do stuff physically that others can't at the junior level, then even at the NCAA, the way he did

before he came to the NHL, you never really get tested in that way and you never really put in those compromising positions where you have to even really work on that, right? It's like a luxury that you never really need to tap into. And then all of a sudden, you come to the NHL and it's like, all right, now all of a sudden, everyone's bigger and faster, there's less space. I'm going to have to be here as well. And so he's going to get that with time. I'm not really worried about that.

You want to talk about the playmaking a little bit before we get into the shot? Because obviously he's going to profile as more of a playmaker and his passing in particular. He's got the six assists so far, I think, based on the looks he's creating versus teammates, that's legit, and there's plenty more to come. I like him in combination with that line.

I know that recently they experimented with, they flipped Gunther and Schmaltz because they've been spickling offensively and they just wanted a little bit of a lineup spark. But I think long term, I actually really do like him with Gunther. And shout out to PDO guest favorite, Jack McBain as well. I think stylistically, they're very complimentary of each other, right? Like they can attack off the rush, but also down low, they kind of have the same tendencies in that cycle game and they can create there as well. And so I really like him in that. I think it's a very complimentary situation. He clearly, as any high-end playmaker, just lives to funnel the puck into that slot.

and essentially playing with Gunther as well, like just getting him more shot opportunities from high-danger areas is definitely the way to go. So I love seeing that from them. And yeah, you can see the passing on full display, right? Like he's feathering it in there through traffic into the high-danger areas.

It's a lot of the sort of tactical things that would talk about all the time. Like, this is how you create and this is how you score meaningfully in today's game. Yeah. And he's finding those areas, again, because he's so proactive with his vision, right? head up, surveying the ice.

You never see him. I mean, he'll throw no looks, right? You can know how to look defenders off. But it's just that overall presence, right? It's a tangible presence. And you could tell that everything he's doing is with the intention of creating time and space. What I think impresses me most about his current state chemistry with Genther is how well they read off of each other. Right.

And if he makes a play, he being Logan Cooley, makes a play to Genther, that's not, and get there doesn't have a shot or maybe it's not the right uh you know maybe nothing's there he's got so defenseman on him they're going back and forth and doing a lot of of tick-tac-toe and um you know um that that opens things up you know i think again the the use of both the low high um and and going against the grain uh you know that that creates this uh synergy between the two of them where they're they're often moving in the opposite direction everybody else is uh you know they're coming up high in the zone they're giving and going and then they're heading back down And that constant off-puck motion makes it really hard to mark them as a defense.

Right. I mean, we think about traditional defensive systems in the NHL. They're not man-based systems, right? Whereas we're dividing the ice in half or making into zones and we're making reeds based off that. They're in transition through those zones constantly. So the responsibility of who's supposed to be marking them is always changing, right?

Their off-puck movement dictates, I think that you kind of have to have a little bit of a heightened sense of awareness when they're on the ice. They're at their best for me. when they're making those high runs, throwing the puck low, and then everybody shuffles, right? There's all this movement. And they're just, again, so good at finding each other laterally. That's what really amazes me is their ability to go east-west. Whether that be to half an ice surface and get it into the slot, or whether those be circle-to-circle passes, all of that off-pup movement, all of that high-low is what gives them these lanes that just appear out of nowhere.

And again, the strength for coolly being, yes, he's an unbelievable distribution. distributor of the puck, right? But it's what he does after that that is super important. It's immediately becoming available for a give and go, immediately getting a stick down, getting to an open area, keeping his head pivoted, knowing where his responsibility is and who's supposed to be marking him and how do I get away from that person? That is, you know, people throw the word chemistry around all the time, right? It's like this ubiquitous term in hockey that could just mean you're scoring a lot, right? But I think if we wanted to actually, usually it does. If you wanted to actually define what it looks like on the ice, I think you watch these two.

They discernibly have it between each other and they know if Coley comes in with a head of Steve and he puts the brakes on, Gendor knows what to do with that situation. Right. I mean, they've done it what seems like a thousand times already. That to me is super encouraging and I'm looking very much forward to watching that partnership continue to evolve over the course of the rest of this year. It's a really fun one. I'm right there and locks up with you.

All right, Jesse, let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we'll jump right back into it. We'll finish up here on Logan Cooley and get into a few more parts of his game and things we're seeing from him this season. You're listening to the Hockey-Pedio cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the Hockey-Pedio cast

with Jesse Marshall. We're doing our film club study of Logan Cooley's game so far this season. We sort of danced around it before he went to break, right? We talked about his playmaking. You sort of referenced the shot. He scored 20 goals last year. He hasn't scored yet this season. I don't think it's necessarily for a lack of effort because he's certainly had some good looks in particular in tight against goalies.

The shot rate is up a little bit, right? He was at 515 last year, 11.8 attempts for 60, which was not very good compared to other qualifying forwards. It was like in the bottom third, essentially. This year is up to 13.7. So he's on the way up. The high danger attempts are up as well, which kind of matches what you're seeing on the tape. It's obviously never going to, I don't think, profile as a high. end goal score. A lot of his points are going to come from assists, and that's perfectly

fine on this team, especially playing with Gunther's as we highlighted. But I want to talk to you a little bit about both his shot mechanics, because I think that's still a work in progress for him. It kind of reminds me a lot of when Jack Sews came into the league, right, where it was like, he gets some looks from high-danger areas, but you wish he did a little bit more with it. And then the shot selection itself, which I think is just as important, where there's times he kind of waste pucks. And I know I just said that I want to see the shot rate up in that contributes to that. So in theory it's good. But there's times where for such a high level passer and thinker of the game, he probably could do something a little more with it. And I think

that's also a natural thing that's going to hire itself out over time. But I think those two kind of go hand in hand here in where he's going to be able to take his next step as both an offensive player and a point producer. Yeah, I think his strength in his release is in how far away he keeps the puck from his body. It allows him to get a lot of leverage without a lot of motion. You'll routinely see him curl and drag before he shoots to kind of hide where the puck's coming from. It tries to keep it in the feet of the defenseman as he's getting set up. But like you said, the discernment, I guess is the word I would use, right? Better discernment, I think, from time to time in selection.

I know that, like you said, it goes against exactly what we're talking about. But I think we want the shot rate to go up with better shots, right? I think that's what we're saying, right? I think more selective. And again, he's good enough in retrieval, right? And good enough in the battle areas that he can, you know, pin himself up and live to fight another day, wait for some help, right? I think overall, between the selection and I think sometimes in tight there's a little, there's, there's, I don't want to call it panic, but he does. I think he rushes himself in front of the net sometimes and can struggle to get good lift on the puck as a result.

But again, those things are going to come with time. I'm not super concerned about it. I think he's got a shot that would comfortably, ultimately, Dimitri, allow him to live around 20 goals every year. I mean, I think that should be a very easy expectation for him, given what his skill set is. I would just like to see a little bit more in front of the net. You know, getting, there was a couple highlights you saw here where we took a couple drives to the crease. I'd love more drives to the grease. I think that's the one element that's been a little bit busy this year. And we talked about that burst he has. You can really make things happen with that burst when you're down and tight and walking and out of the corner off the half wall. I think that's what's missing. Right now, we're seeing a lot of, I've come across the blue line. I have a guy keeping a decent gap. I'm going to pull it back and shoot its room, right? That's low percentage.

You're outside the circle. That's a long, distant shot. Don't get me wrong. It can work, especially if you get height on it and you're hiding it from the goalie. Maybe they can't see it. But I'd love to see him from a possession in the zone. walk it through that middle section in those trolley tracks and get into some more of those high danger areas. Because look, at the end of the day, if you're not shooting the pub at a super elite

level, the area you're shooting it from needs to be a super elite level. That's an extremely high dangerous space. And I think that's the spot I'd like to see him shoot from a little bit more. I think that's also a balancing act for young playmakers as well, right? Because you need to strike this fine line, which we're obviously tapping into your preferred play style. It will make you most dangerous and effective, especially when you're playing with a gunther where it's like, all right, it makes more sense that he should shoot this puck because you'd better at it than I am, and so I want to work to get in the puck there, while also keeping opposing defense as at least kind of planting the seeded doubt of your mind that, all right, I might actually

shoot here, so you have to respect it as opposed to just cheating. And doing so is not only going to increase his goal total and make him more dangerous, but also going to open more passing windows then accordingly for him to actually do what he wants to all along. So just disguising his attention's a little bit there is going to help quite a bit. I think that just comes with more reps. A lot of his shooting also, like, I know this is like a big Daryl Bellfrey thing comes off the move as well. And I think he's a little bit noisy in his mechanics there as well where like, because as you mentioned, his feet are always moving. He's always active and trying to do something. I think sometimes he doesn't get set properly. And maybe that's why he's not lifting the puck

as much. And it's kind of just like, right, the goal is just able to scoop it up or kick it out with pretty relative ease. And so I think that's something he needs to work on. I think that'll come with time and with strength as well. But those are kind of areas where I look at when I watch his game and I'm like, all right, how does this guy logically take a step now from being where he's at now to what his ceiling is in a couple years? I think it's going to come mostly through that. And I have faith that he's going to do it, but he's still need to see it. Yeah, there's a lot of snapshoting is what I would call it, right? Limited motion, very quick motion. You're not shrewby shedding the puck off your stick from the back of the blade and creating that sort of scoop that gives you a lot of lift and a lot of velocity.

So I would agree with that. I think especially exactly what you said about it, one, being in transition, right, which is where I think it's happening most. And then two, as you said, off of the move, right? I also think that I would, I would like to see more of the shot off of protecting the puck. I think that's the one he has to me that's really the scariest or maybe brings you to the edge of the seat the most. He does do a really good job. of keeping that thing extended away from him, right? Got an arm out, maybe he's protecting it, and then to come from there and be able to like do a little curl drag shot, right,

and get a little bit of extra motion on it. He hides that really well, right? I mean, I think it's hard for goalies to see that when you're in traffic and when you've got your body bent down and you're protecting the puck away from them, right? To their eye is not going to immediately be able to see where you're cradling it at and where the origin of the shot is coming from. And it flies off to stick, I think,

a lot more volatile in or in those situations. So, yeah, I agree with you. Less on the staccato side. I'd like to see a little bit more of that shot come from that pup protection posture. Yeah, they've had a few sequences, and I think this kind of illustrates the intentions are the right place or like they're onto something where on the power play, right? Like, he's the one taking the draw as the center. And then once they win it back, they've got this nice little motion reset play where like he

drifts across to his one-time side and they set him up there. And then the puck comes. And we saw it in that clip against a done. where like it's a good opportunity. I really like everything. And it's almost like the horse drawing in a way, right? Like that meme where it's like, it's just immaculate sort of portrayal or picture.

And then all of a sudden you get the final product and you just kind of like, my finish about very, very remittantly. Yeah. It's like, all right, I'm going to hand it and I'm done here. And it's like that's also the most important part of the sequence in a way where it's like you actually have to finish it and finishing that level is one of the toughest things to do in NHL. So I want to see more work on that.

You know I talk a little bit about sort of, I mean, we've sort of mentioned what the next steps are, how where improvement's going to come from both from a skill perspective and a production perspective. I mean, one of the limiting factors for him here, I think there's two obvious ones right now for the team. One for him personally is that he's just not on that first power play unit, right? And I did a full show on power plays yesterday with Jack Hahn. And if you haven't listened to it, I really recommend it. It was really fun. We got similarly to what we're doing here, just nerding out about like formations and tactics and the way teams are operating. They have that five-man unit and there's just a bit of an overlap skill set-wise with him and kind of work in the half wall because Gunther's going to be a shooter on one flight.

And then Keller is going to be the guy the point in the point or like the guy who run everything through the other half wall. And so cool he doesn't really have a place on that top unit right now. And obviously we know that a lot of the high in scores get a big chunk of their offense through that. So I would temperate expectations from a point perspective just because he's not on there yet. I don't necessarily blame you tough for not having one there because I really like the personnel they have. And it's not like I'd be putting him on, you know, net front or a point to try to get him out there. Like, there's guys with better skill sets for that. So it's just the reality of the situation for him. But I would say that's kind of one thing where I don't know how that's going to work itself

out in the future because hopefully Keller is going to be there for a long time. And so he might just be blocking him from doing so. But that's just kind of where we're at right now with him when you talk about like, all right, like what's a realistic output for him scoring wise right now? Yeah, I would agree with that. Not a really natural home form. him on that top unit. And we also talked about this at the beginning of the show. He's proving to be an extremely valuable asset on the penalty kill too, right? And that's not a place where you go to score a lot of points. But his speed and his forechecking ability, I think, are going to enable him to be deployed in very special situations where the goal isn't necessarily to score. It's to prevent

somebody else from doing so, right? There's a lot of value in that. I think he's got a lot of value in that space given how fast he is and how much he can really just disrupt the root. routine, right? And if you've pulled the goalie, the thing that you're looking for is a very nice, comfortable exit out of your zone to build momentum and get the puck in the offensive zone and live there with the extra attacker, right? This is the kind of player that stops you from doing that and creates a real nightmare for you and busting out of your own end. And I think that, you know, you may see deployments for him shift. You know, I still think he'll get second power play time, right? But I think at the end of the day, there's probably going to be a

reservation from the staff that want to use him in these very specialized situations at the end of games where they have a big draw in their own zone. They need the legs out there to disrupt or wherever the draw is, he can get to a very short distance in a very quick period of time and cause some serious grief. So I think that with the trend heading that way, that just makes them a more valuable player to me. That, you know, that's, that's not a knock. It gives you, you know, the ability to be deployed in a lot of uncanny situations for your skill set. But I, you know, I look forward to the maturation of his game in that area because I think there could be a lot of fun to watch

just out there at the end of the game just cruising around and great in turn. Maybe he'll get them all on empty net goals to each other. He'll just be out there depositing empty netters all season long as he harasses teams while they have an extra attacker. Well, that'll be nice. Listen, like obviously from a real life perspective and from helping the Utah Hockey Club

take a next step as an organization and make the playoffs and compete and all that, undoubtedly incredibly valuable and in particular like attributions there are going to help a lot in that regard a lot of our extent of our analysis in the hockey sphere is unfortunately rooted around points and in particular when comparing young players and whether they're successful or not and what they're worth and all of that right so I kind of wanted to just touch on that because I think like we're devoting a full show here to Logan Cooley he's got six assists and zero goals in eight games I think there's probably there probably would be people that are like oh that's not that that's not that

impressive. Why are you doing a full show? But I think that kind of, like, we're trying to peel a couple layers back here and actually look at what's happening and focus on that a little bit more. And I think he passes all the tests there. And that's why we picked him as a very worthy case study, I think. Yeah, I said this on Twitter to recently, Dimitri, that if you're on the East Coast, right, and you're looking for a good late night hockey snack and you want to watch a fun team play, put Utah on. I mean, this is just a fun thing to watch, right? If you like good skating and you like give and go hockey, uh, and that's up and down the rink, um, I, I mean, I, I've enjoyed every one of the games they've played so far this season.

And it's just a building off the momentum that they had at certain points at the end of the year last year. So the continued maturation of this group of players, regardless of where they're located and what city they're based out of has been really extraordinary to behold. And that the cavalry is coming, right? There are still even more young talent on this team and in this organization. It's only going to supplement what we're seeing before us now that make the identity of this club a lot interesting to think about, you know, two, three years down the line from now. What does this lineup look like? And what are some of the totals and points that some of these

young players are putting up? But yeah, that's been my recommendation from the start of the year. If you're up late, you can't sleep, you want to watch some hockey. See if Utah is playing while you're on the East Coast. And I guarantee you won't fall asleep. It's not going to help you go to bed, but you at least be entertained. Yeah. Well, I think one of the reasons I'd selfishly like to see them keep playing competitive fun hockey beyond the entertainment value is, as you mentioned, that value, right? Where, like, they're just stock still with such a treasure chest of takes in particular second rounders, which teams covet quite a bit, even though they don't have the sticker price value of a first rounder, I guess. And so if that empowers this organization,

and it seems like they are going to be much more willing to spend and keep adding and actually doing what it takes to build out a proper NHL organization, all of a sudden now, if they're actually willing to add and use some of those and leverage them into other players that can help, all of a sudden how we could be really cooking with something. Now listen, I think the timing of the show could have admittedly been a bit better because you and I planned it with the previous week and then I got sick. And so we had to put it off for a week. And in the meantime, Sean Jersey got hurt, right? And he's out for a couple months. John Marino, it was where we always going to be out for a couple months as well. And I think one of the other limiting factors right now they're going to have

work around is just a defensive talent, right? Because they're all of a sudden asking a lot from players who probably are playing higher in the lineup that they should. And we've seen that a little bit here. Like after a really strong start to the year, and I thought their first five, six games were like top three from a watchability perspective across the league. Like I was like, you have to be watching this team. They went home. They lost four nothing in Ottawa. They lost five one yesterday to Colorado, kind of hit the skids, didn't really able to generate anything offensively and didn't have the same jump it looked like a little demoralizing. And it happens over the course of an 82 game season.

So the timing could have been better in terms of those hyping this up. But at the same time, I'm still so excited about not only the player Logan Gouley, but also the future of this organization and how bright it looks and how fun they are and the way they're playing and what they're building year. And so hopefully this deep dive kind of reinforced that a little bit. And our breakdown of it helped really kind of shine a light on that because, as I said, if you're just sorting my points, it isn't necessarily something that would pop off the page. But I think the actual details of like what's happening on the ice,

have been really notable so far this year. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And again, like, we talk about this for his age, right? If I'm ranking puck distributors so far this year, I mean, he's got to be up near the top. And it's just that ability to, you know, give that peak, you know, have that head up, know where your teammates are going to be and then send the puck there. I mean, it's, it's, it sounds so easy, right, but it's such a hard thing for young players to do is to have that cognizance and that awareness that they need to be surveying the ice at all times. With his skill set, just the command that he already has, it truly is. It's fun to watch. It's a lot of

fun to watch and it's unpredictable. You know, you never get the same thing often from him twice, which makes it all the more interesting. Got any other notes on the Cooley or just here in general? I know we're talking before we went on the air that you're writing for McKee's as well this season and you're going to be, I think, writing something kind of profiling them as well. Anything else kind of that you think is notable here while we're still recording? No, the only thing I other have, I mean, we kind of talked about this already, but just the back checking, right? I mean, I think that very zealous backchecking this season and being engaged in that space, particularly has really given his line a boost in their ability to play off the rush and in a transition. And that's where they're just extremely dangerous, right?

or their ability to thread pups through traffic, get people to turn their hips, right, force them into making uncomfortable decisions. When they play off the counter and they're turning pups over in between the blue, that is where they really become dangerous. And I think that added element for him this year is just so crucial to be able to get up there, disrupt what's happening between the line, the blue lines, and turn defense into offense very fast. That is what I'm watching for the rest of the year from Logan Cooley.

I'd love to see more of that. And I think if you get more than that, the goals are going to come. I think so as well. I think, you know, hopefully these injuries and the defense and we'll see maybe they'll make a move. It seems like right now they're willing to stay patient and kind of promote some guys from within the organization and give them a shot. Hopefully it doesn't summary to everything, right? Because I think the entryway into the season for this organization was incredibly fun and something you can really easily as an unbiased third party just latch on to and root for.

I can't help but feel like I made this note on the power play show I reference for. on that they're on the precipice of something, both on the Powerblade, but just in general, of something really cool and really productive, right? Like even if they're not scoring or winning games, there's segments within it where you're like, oh, I can see the outline of something that's going to be special here, the way they move the puck, what they're trying to do, the actual individual skill level in place and how it all kind of coalesces. And so hopefully we're able to see that fully manifest and materialize. That is probably one of the toughest things, right, to go from where they've been to what we want from them. And sometimes they can, you can

become a little bit impatient and frustrated. We've seen teams like the Sabres. I mean, the ducks certainly over the past couple years where it's like you get so excited talking yourself into the young talent and then actually winning games on a consecutive repetitive basis is really tough in this league and it can become a little bit demoralizing and hopefully they don't get kind of caught in that nasty cycle as we've seen some of these other organizations, but I'm still injuries, I'm notwithstanding. I'm willing to kind of keep the light on for them. Absolutely. Same here. Yeah, 100%. All right. That's all for today. That was a really fun one. I really enjoyed that as our first film club of the season. I want to plug some stuff. I mentioned your writing there and tell people where they can find you online and what they can look forward from you. Yeah, you can find all my penguin specific material at The Athletic and all of my NHL specific material at McKeon's. We'll be talking about both of those. We'll continue the Utah discussion on McKeons next week and just the really depressing stuff about the

Penguins will be coming out too, so make sure you don't miss that if you're a penguinator. God bless you for sticking with watching the Penguins. It's been a tough, tough start to the season. They're not boring games. They're not boring. They're not boring. Embarrassing, maybe. Not boring, certainly. All right, my plugs are, if you like this episode, help us out so you can subscribe to the PEOCast Discord and possibly even suggest future film club topics for us and just get involved and let us know what you liked and didn't like about the show. You can give us a five-star review as I mentioned. Hopefully the listener from Finland is going to revise his strategy and give us that fifth

elusive star. And this is also just the first of many film clubs, film club episodes that Jesse and I are preparing for this season. I've already built out a full as the guys, Jesse, that I want us to do the video work on in the coming weeks. I really want to get into Mitch Codd at some point. Boldy. I'm really the wild have my curiosity and my interest and attention and all that stuff. I want to watch more of him. I think Connor Garland would be a really fun one because he's a bit different from a lot of the players who typically tend to gravitate towards on these shows. And then Matthew Nyes as well.

I think his forechecking this season has been exemplary. And so I wanted to get into all that. We have plenty of time to do so this season. So now is a good time. If you enjoy this first episode and you want to follow along for the full season ride with Jesse and I, subscribe to the HockeyPedocast YouTube channel as well. You can watch along with us there as we break it all down. And that's going to be for today. That's all I've got. So thank you for listening to us here on the Sportsnet Radio Network.