The Hockey PDOcast - Florida Dominating Tampa Bay, and the Little Edges Between Bruins and Leafs

Episode Date: April 26, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Ryan Lambert to break down how the Panthers have dominated the Lightning despite what the scores in each game have suggested, and the little edges in the Bruins vs. Leafs series that have resulted in the only close Eastern Conference round 1 matchup. 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 Hockey PEDEOCast. My name's Dimitra Filipovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Ryan Lambert. R.O. What's going on, man? I'm chilling. I'm chilling. This is going to be a good day. The plan for today for us is to focus on some East matchups because this week so far,

all my content, I feel like I've devoted most of my attention through the first couple games to the heavyweight tilts we've been seeing in the Central. And I think deservedly so, both those series have been. full of intrigue and I think have massive ramifications for the rest of the postseason. But I wanted to chat with you today about the Lightning and Panthers right off the top after we just saw Florida take a stranglehold lead on Thursday night going up through nothing, putting themselves one game away from sweeping Tampa Bay. And I think exacting some sweet revenge on their in-state rival after they obviously

got swept themselves in embarrassing fashion a couple of years ago. We just saw that game through. I think it was a very competitive one certainly. And I think that's probably, that's been the case. for most of this series, as we unpack it here, I'm going to give you a lot of stats to show how Florida is dominated and how Tampa Bay has been generally pretty fortunate, I think, to be as close on the scoreboard throughout these games.

Yet still, I think the point remains that they have been pretty competitive and close, at least in terms of score. And so despite it being three nothing, I do think there's a lot of interesting stuff for us to parse through here. Yeah, and the thing you said, too, about not really covering the East and now it's a good time to do it. That's true because all these series are over basically, right? Like three of the four series just feel like they are done, done.

And so, I don't know. Yeah, watching these games, I guess, my big takeaway is, like you said, Tampa is fortunate to make every game appear as close as it is. But I would say on the balance like 3-0, the way the games have gone like if you took them as a whole, you'd be like, yeah, this is a team that's pushed the other team to the brink of elimination for sure. Yeah. I noted how close they've been on the scoreboard and all three games were one goal games

functionally before empty netters and two of them essentially, they kind of put them away. Game two gave us a very rare, unfortunately, over time so far. I think we've only seen two, right? We saw that one and then we saw Oilers Kings both ended pretty quickly. So I think we're due here for an extended overtime, so hopefully, especially, on the West Coast here where I just get to enjoy it without worrying about my bedtime because this is the best time zone to be watching sports in. I'm getting so sleepy, man.

I was so glad there was not a late game last night. I went to bed at like 1130. It was awesome. It was pretty nice for me here on the West Coast too. I got to go out for a rare dinner and not be on my phone the entire time checking the score. And so I'm sure my partner enjoyed that. But out of the 183 minutes, they've played so far in the series, only 13 of them have

had the score not be within one goal either way. And I shouldn't even say either way because Tampa Bay has led for seven minutes so far. So it's mostly been Florida being up by one and holding on to that lead. But I think unsurprisingly, you know, we make these sort of predictions before the series in terms of what we saw in the regular season, how we think these two teams are going to stack up in our series previews. I think everyone expected Florida to be the dominant team at five on five. and I think they've unsurprisingly just thoroughly kicked Tampa Bay's ass so far at 5-1-5.

You know, based on the regular season, it was one of the biggest mismatches in that regard. And I've got the scoring chances so far. I've tracked all three of these games. At 5-1-5, scoring chances are 59 to 29 for Florida. So they've got more than double 30-plus scoring chances over Tampa Bay. And I think that really is kind of the nucleus or the core of this series. If we're like talking about how it's been played out, what's happening, what's the difference, between these two teams.

It's just like Florida is arguably the best 5-1-5 team in the league and Tampa Bay was one of the worst this year, particularly out of the playoff teams, and that's how true to form in the series. Yeah, just for posterity, I guess, natural statrick has high dangers, 5229 as well. So like that all lines up. And, you know, this is what,

this is how Florida got to the cup final last year. For the first three rounds of the playoffs, They were like, no one gets within 50 feet of Sergey Brovsky. If you think you're doing it, you're wrong. I don't know how else to put it to you. And I think that what is a little surprising to me, again, these games are all close, you know, at least in terms of the score. And the thing that is surprising to me is that, like, Kutrov is, I would say, kind of not very involved in a lot of that. Kutrov. I got some stats for you too.

Kutrov has fewer individual expected goals at five on five than Emil Lilleberg. That's not where you want to be. He is in the bottom 20% of the league in on-ice expected goals per 60. Like when he's on, he's, I think, like I said, like 80th from the bottom. And also even counting all. situations, in the bottom half of the league, 49th percentile, individual expected goals per 60. So he's just like not making it happen.

And frankly, he's the reason they are in the playoffs because he just went psycho for 82 games or whatever it was. I don't know if he played all 82. But he was unstoppable for the entire season. He got to 100 assists famously. and now that he's not doing that, you're seeing the problems with Tampa's roster, I think. Yeah, it's surprising because he was just, he really didn't have any off nights in the regular season, as you noted. Like, he had almost twice as many three plus point games as games held off the scoreboard.

Like, he was a freak the season. On the other hand, I can't say it's too surprising, especially in terms of like five on five, just because Florida's so uniquely equipped with their personnel if they're going to diligently line match. And they have so far where I've got them down for, Kutraultz played 44 minutes at 5-on-5 essentially. Foresling's been step-for-step with them for like 28 and a half of those. And then there's been a healthy dose of not only forcing a neckblatt as a defensive pair, but then Barakoff and Reinhart supplementing them as the forward line going head to head with them. And so that's obviously a nightmare matchup for everyone in rewatching it,

like what really stands out to me is they're just frustrating him so much as you'd expect for any skill player by just taking away his time and space in particular for hisling who we talk about a lot on the show and I think is as Florida progresses through this postseason is going to become like a talking head thing where like on these broadcasts you're already hearing people being like oh this guy like his plus minus this season he's just everywhere but then you watch him play and in particular like Kutrov gets so many easy touches on the breakout like off the wall where they get it to him and then he's able to sort of like spin around and get at the point in open space or just do something to get involved in the play early. And Forer's Ling is essentially just

meeting him like right before he can get it and just being in his kitchen the entire time. And so Kutrov's essentially all he can do is like dump the puck out or like quickly get rid of it or never even handle it cleanly. And you can see that frustration building. And so I think it's not one of those things was like, oh my God, this guy who's an MVP candidate disappeared. And I don't think anyone is suggesting it as much. I think it's more a testament. to just like how awesome Florida is defensively and the fact that they've got this guy in Foresling and Ekblad and Barkov they can just give this guy fits whereas most of the most of the other league just can't do that.

Yeah, I actually have it written down in my little notes thing here that his line is getting eaten alive. And I think I think that's a good way to put it. Just they I'm praising myself. I put it like that. So I did a great job, I guess. Yes, very well said. But, but like, just, like you said, they're doing all the stuff that was successful for them in the regular season.

And Florida is just like, that's a no-go for us, big dog. We're not going to let that happen. The other thing I want to say, though, Tampa had the best power play in the league. This year, we're in at like 28.5%. They are two for 12 in the series. Both of those goals were by Stephen Stamcoast. and one of them was like a garbage time goal that didn't really matter in game one. So to me, I think kind of the story of this series is that like Stephen Sancoast is their best

offensive player, which I mean, you know, three, four years ago, that's fine. But now not so much. And the guy who, who do you think leads them in shots on goal in this series? Oh. is it like Mike Mikey Asamont or something that's exactly who it is he has eight shots on goal you can tell that I'm a sick freak because

you're watching me here on Zoom the listeners can't see it but you can tell that I hadn't like pulled up natural statrick in the meantime to check you looked up at the ceiling you're literally my hands are here you can see them I'm not I'm not toggling I had that in the back of my mind it was Mikey he is

he is super involved in the offense I get you know a class of name you're watching the game you're hearing his name a lot, right? So you know he's involved, but like, again, if Mikey Isamont leads you in shots on goal, that's a problem for you. I don't know how else to put it to you, you know?

It's what leads you to potentially get swept by your in-state ride. No, it's been the job that's going to be true. I mean, if I won five, five, it was 44 minutes, he's got two scoring chances, has set up one scoring chance, four shots on goal, just one secondary assist. Like, this is clinical. This is something that you watch tape on to try to figure out if you're another team in the future, what you can do. Obviously, easier than done if you don't have this type of personnel.

But I think that's notable. The other note that I had was the reason why this has been as close as it has on the scoreboard, and it's not to take anything away from Sergey Barovsky at the other end, who's obviously been really good himself. He had that all-time save where he had his back turn to Dunba and still stopped it. he's only given up seven goals against in three games, so he's been really good. And I think he's looked really explosive,

moving laterally and all that stuff, and that's good. But Vasilevsky at the other end, I just wanted to note has been essentially everything we were spending all regulars he's in ever since his return, being like, oh, this is what we need to see.

Like, he hasn't been this version of himself. And in this series, despite the fact that a safe representative doesn't necessarily look all that good. He's been unreal. Natural Static has him at 39 high danger chances against, that I think second best, second highest is like 25 or something so far this postseason for other goalies.

So just the kind of how he's been under fire. And in particular in that game too, where they actually went overtime and were one shot away from winning a game, he was just unbelievable. I thought and Bobrovsky got a lot of the attention because of that highlight real save. But then subtly, Vasolensky was just stacking up like all of these remarkable saves in the backdrop. And so the reason it's been this close. And I guess that's kind of.

comforting for Tampa Bay. It's the silberest of silver linings. But this is obviously a massive piece for them moving forward, both in terms of their financial commitment and his standing in the league. And he had what a back surgery or whatever right before the season and looked bad this regular season. And so the fact that you're seeing this at least is like pretty encouraging that we haven't lost Andre Masolevsky in all caps, I guess.

Yeah. No, I mean, that is. what do you want to say? Like the narrative about this team is that they were saving it for the playoffs. They were saving it for the playoffs, right? And it does seem like that's true with Vasilevsky. Whatever. We'll get to 96 points.

It'll be plenty for us. Well, you know, that'll be fine. The other guys, not so much. They may be emptied the tanks in the regular season. But, yeah, no, Vasilevsky's been awesome. Like he might lead the Lee. I didn't write this down, but I think he might lead the league. He's up there, certainly, in goals save above expected in the playoffs so far.

So can't do better than that. No, he's been really good. And listen, like, I just wanted a note because you and I had planned that we were going to do this series right off the top of today's show. And then we were messaging back and forth as the game was going on. And in the first period, I was fully expecting just like a completely unabashed eulogy here of the lightning. Because I was like, man, they look completely. lifeless, defeated. It looks like reality setting in that they're just playing such a superior team.

And then that second period was one of the most fun periods of hockey in the postseason so far where they were just going back and forth. And they actually threw a bunch of haymakers at the Panthers. And I think from the Panthers perspective, what's very encouraging about their sort of path forward is they like any great team, you could tell like they were rocked a little bit by how hard Tampa Bay was going at them. but they just absorbed all those punches and waited patiently. And then as soon as they could, they just countered and scored a couple goals and

sort of put their foot down on the game and the series. And so that's kind of what great teams do in this setting, right? Like you're never going to have just a completely smooth path. There's going to be stretches where the other team is just more energetic and hungrier and more motivated to like throw the kitchen sink at you. And then their response to that I thought was very telling as well. Yeah, if I can analogize it to mix martial arts, It's like when you see a guy get like rocked up against the cage and then he just kind of like smiles and you're like, well, this fight's over.

I mean, what are we? You know, this guy's dead, this other guy. And that that's what it felt like because you were like, you know, like you said, we're messaging back and forth. And you're like, oh, Tampa is actually making this pretty interesting. And then, you know, the, the, the, the panthers scored. And I was like, yeah, we're done here. That's it. So I guess it's it's tough for them.

It is the big story here for me is Florida's kind of quote unquote second line. It's obviously when you have Chuck and Verhege on it, it's very overqualified for that type of description. But that's what it's listed as on the depth chart. Right. Sam Bennett goes down midway through game two. I thought he broke his hand. It looked like he took a puck cleanly to his head and he was very, very upset after going to the title. I'm like, oh, that's generally a sign.

that a guy knows that he broke a bone or got hurt pretty badly. It sounds like they avoided that because he's only out for like a week or so, I think, here. I guess he's week to week right now, but there's confidence in the way they put it, that it's not as serious as they initially thought. What we're seeing since then, though, is they bump Lundell up to the second line center to play with Kachuk and Verhege.

And in 18, 5-1-5 minutes so far, those three, shots are 10-3, high-dangered chances, 8-0, goals to nothing. And the reason why I think this is notable is Lundell has been kind of a tough player to evaluate for us because he had a lot of pedigree. We've seen a ton of flashes. He's been a very useful contributor for this team.

But since his rookie year, I think his offense has kind of stagnated a little bit. And I think part of that is just because of like his usage and what his role is on this team. But all of a sudden now playing on this line with just two immensely talented players who always have the puck in Kachukh and Verhege. I'm very curious to see if they can kind of draw more offensive creativity out of him.

And so far, so good because he obviously made that beautiful pass from behind the net to Kachuk for the goal. He had another setup later on in the game where he stole it and set up Kachuk similarly. And so if they're going to get this from him, Bennett will come back at some point. But I think like in a weird way, even though Bennett's obviously a very useful contributor for them, having Lundell in this role and if he can live up to it increases their ceiling even more, just because I think he has more to offer as a two-way player than Bennett really does. So assuming he can actually be this version that I think people theoretically think of him and so far so good. Yeah, and like between Bennett and Lomburg was sick last night, is that what it was?

Mm-hmm. It just doesn't matter. Like, again, that speaks to the quality of the team and the ability of even, you know, third-line, quote unquote to just pop onto the top or one of the top lines and make it look kind of easy. You know, like that's what else can you say about these guys? They're such a good team. I thought they were maybe a little bit of a flash in the pan last year just because, like, I didn't think Bobrovsky could do this again, but here we are.

And again, how much of that is just like, you know, they've established a purpose. perimeter around him and nobody's allowed to to breach it. But yeah, I'm just so impressed by the Panthers. I thought they would win the series, obviously. I think they're probably the best team in the Eastern Conference, if not the league right now. And I didn't think it would look like this. I didn't think I didn't think they'd be, you know, walking the park level.

But here we are. Yeah. Do you want to talk a little bit about the lightning just from like where things have gone wrong for them. We've sort of obviously alluded to, you know, they've completely blanketed Kutrov and taking him away really eliminates any chance they have of creating sustainable offense. I think you certainly see. We mentioned Aesemont's been very involved offensively, but also their depth has unsurprisingly gotten completely nuked in the series where guys like Calvin Dahan, Tyler Mott, Tanner Genoa, Luke Lendening, and Max Crozier, who I swear I didn't

make up that last name, have all like a sub 20% 5 on 5 on 5 expected goal share in their limited usage of this series. And so you sort of seen that whenever John Cooper has tried to get them out there just because you have to over the course of a game, Florida has just completely pounced on that opportunity and taken full advantage of it. And that isn't surprising because when you like Florida's very deep and Tampa Bay is not at all. But just seeing it play out that way has sort of, I guess, reinforced.

Like from Julian Breesworth and the lightnings perspective, this isn't necessarily groundbreaking information. But if they are going to extend this window in any way they can and actually try to keep competing while Kutrov and Hedman and Hojinder is still this good, that's something they just have to address. Like they just cannot keep going down this road and expecting to get by because the margin for air is just shrinking with each passing kind of month seemingly here. Yeah, it does feel like the sun's setting a little bit. Like even guys that I think are like pretty good defensemen for them like Nick Purbix or whatever. It's like I saw him play plenty over the years in college. And if you had said to me, oh, you know, he'll be kind of a key figure for the for the Tampa Bay Lightning. I'm like when he's like 35 or something, right?

Like, you know, he'll be he'll be like a plug and play guy when they're starting the new competitive cycle. Right. No, it doesn't work out that way. By the way, I do know who Max Grozer is, again, because he played college hockey. And if you had said, now this guy right here, he's going to play 49 games in a season for the Tampa Bay Lightning. I'd have been like, there's no way that's true. And he did this season. So, you know, I think we're seeing a little bit the thing of like, yeah, Brandon Hagle and Nick Paul.

These are good players on bargain contracts. They're just not the level of good player that we're used to. Tampa having at this point, I think. And that's what happens when you're going to keep paying all these guys who win Stanley Cups. You know, it's, it's tough to see it kind of be so emphatic. The, like the gap between them in Florida or who, you know, pick a, pick a team in that division, the gap between them in Toronto, even, you know. But it's just how it goes.

We've seen it plenty of times over the years. it comes for everybody, I guess, you know? No, it does. Maybe I also, you know, should know who Maxwell Crozier is because I'm looking here. And he essentially walked at the North Shore Winter Club so that Connor Bedard and Macklin Celebrini and all those guys could run. He was a little, he paved the way for them in that whole class. I think the, in watching them, and this has been sort of a recurring thing, but I think at this

point is just unavoidable. Like, they've gotten so much praise for their kind of a talent evaluation and ruthlessness with, like, you know, personnel decisions and just like how they've been able to have this extended stretch atop the league. In particular, their blue line and sort of this lightning scouting model or pro-scouting model for like the type of defensemen they prefer, you look at how they've built together this group and all jokes aside about it being like some relatively unknown name. and I do like guys like Perbix and Radish, I just feel like it's been so limiting for them.

They seem just obsessed with having like big physical defensemen to supplement their forwards when I actually like a lot of the forward types or archetypes they bring in. And I don't. Yeah. They've had success with it. Certainly like guys like headman, churnack, like big physical defensemen. But I just like this deadline, they were all in on no Hanifin. And I guess that didn't work out.

So they had to quickly like pivot on the fly. but for their big addition to sort of reinforce after Sergachev's injury being like Matt Dunba who was just unfortunately so unbelievably done at this point physically. I just don't know what they're seeing or what they're doing with that position in particular because it feels like for all this talk about their championship window closed, the sun setting on this organization at least for now. I don't think it needs to be that way if they were able to find a couple like puck moving defensemen, which are generally. generally available for cheap if you're like looking for the right players. And for whatever reason, they just don't really value those guys. So they go with these alternatives. And I think that's in a series like this, you watch it.

And not that many teams can move the puck against Florida's forecheck, but they just have like no hope. Like they just keep getting stuffed in their own zone. Right. Yeah. I mean, part of it too is it's difficult to, I think when you're when you're, when you're really cap strapped as they have been for the last what seven or eight years you know they've just been paying pretty much everybody this whole time and understandably so they have had mostly

good players for for that stretch it's about obviously finding market inefficiencies and i think they're probably thinking that guys like max crozier or nick pervix or whatever like these are guys that are maybe a little undervalued and they can get for cheaper than they probably would otherwise, versus you've got to pay at least a little bit for a puck moving defenseman. Now, to your point, like, why are they not drafting or developing signing college free agents who can move the puck? I don't know the answer to this question, right? And again, maybe it's just multiple teams are trying to get it. Maybe the guys that fit that mold are just going, well, I'm not going to, you know,

they have a number one defenseman. They have a number two defenseman. I don't have that opportunity in Tampa that I have in Arizona or Chicago or, you know, name a team that isn't good, right? So the other thing that I think is probably the case. with them is that they haven't really needed a puck moving defenseman for the last several years because they have Victor Headman and you just go, well, you play like 32 minutes a night. You move the puck pretty well.

Get out there. Go do that. And he does. And he does. And it's worked. He hasn't been that good the last few years. Yeah. You hate to say it.

But that's kind of where my head's at where it's just like, what we're going to do is we're going to try to have Victor headman out there as much as possible and kind of hope he he turns back into what he was in 2019 and I I don't think those days are coming back you know yeah no I think I think you you're right there in terms

of like the biggest consideration here being like all right we have such a finite amount of cap space these are the guys who are available and who are willing to come play for that amount and that's just what we have to settle for but it's just so strange for the past couple years like They're just continued obsession with like Zach Begoshin, Ian Cole, now Matt Dumbah, like all these guys who are just like this, I think we could aim a bit higher here in terms of like skills, but they're just like very, they seem to have tunnel vision for like a certain type of defenseman

that they want to bring in here. And unfortunately, there's just not, that works when you have headman, Sergachev and Chernak all like in their primes playing remarkably well. and then you're just looking for like glue character guys who are just willing to block a couple shots on a penalty kill and that's all they're asked to do. But now they're actually asking these guys to play like a big role at 5-1-5 and they're just running into roadblocks. So yeah, it's interesting to see if they change that approach

now that they kind of have to and they're forced into it or if they just go down with the ship. I guess my one final question or note on the lightning, you mentioned Stamco's there earlier. And I was really worried about him for large stretches of this regular. season because he just was not producing at all at 5-and-5. You wouldn't really notice it just by looking at his boxcar stats because he was still scoring so much on that power play.

He scored three other seven goals in this series. The shot, certainly, you can watch it, and he just still, it's like vintage, just ripping the puck. I think he's been much more active and engaged. Like last night, he just laid this huge hit on Aaron Neck Glad to create a scoring chance by dislodging him from the puck. All of this is very encouraging that there actually is utility beyond. just standing there and shooting for at least the next couple years for him.

But I'm so fascinated to see what happens with him in the lightning this offseason and whether it's something where they just get it done and all of this smoke was for not or whether there is something actually to it and we potentially see him playing on another team and what that looks like. Because I imagine, despite, like, it's on tape and all the stats are there. I think teams are generally aware that this isn't Prime Stamco's anymore. Yet, I imagine a team like Nashville who has a bunch of cap space, needs shooting talent, and should be intrigued in bringing in a very recognizable name and face to like add legitimacy to their franchise with their fan base and their market would spend a lot on Stephen Stamber because he's actually willing to leave Tampa.

So I think that actually remains a pretty interesting storyline heading into this offseason. The next captain of the Utah Blizzard, here we go. Big Stephen Stamcoast. He's coming in. They have money to spend, et cetera. no I think my expectation is that they'll figure something out you know I don't think anybody can be under the illusion that like this is the guy that needs six million dollars or whatever and if he feels like he wants to and he's earned that and he you know he left money on the table when he resigned with Tampa last time you know have have fun and have fun in Nashville but I this is just one of those things where it would be it feels like it would be wrong capital W wrong to not have Stephen Stanco's on the Tampa Bay Lightning. It would look weird.

It would certainly look weird, but we shall see. We've seen weirder things in the NHL. Let's take our, do you have any other notes on either of these teams? Or do you want to take our break and move on to another series? Yeah, I'm good. Okay, we're good. I think we did a lot there.

We'll take our break. When we come back, we'll run back into it with our Ann Lambert and talk about, we'll do some Bruins Leaves on the other side. So looking forward to that. You're listening to the Hockey-Ocast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio. network. All right, we're back here with Ryan Lambert. We just did Panthers Lightning in part

one. Let's talk a little bit about the other, I think, intriguing series out east, Bruins Leaves. You mentioned off the top that we're all kind of focusing more on the West stuff just because it seems certainly more dramatic and more competitive because three of these four series out east are very likely going to be like three nothing and have kind of already been decided. the other one, Bruins Leaves, feels like it's destined for a game 7 hell in a cell where everything goes and it's going to compensate essentially

for all of the other lack of drama and histrionics. It's just going to compensate for it. And it's going to be like, all right, we actually had the same amount cumulatively between the East and the West, but just this one series actually accounted for all of it. Yeah. No shortage of drama, I guess is what you would say.

about this. I guess my big thing watching this series is just like, the real problem is the Leafs are the Leafs. You know what I mean? Like they find ways to lose in the way that you just don't expect most pretty good team. I consider the Leafs a pretty good team. And they're like, we love losing.

It's our favorite thing to do. So that's why we're here, I think. Well, the series certainly has had a bunch of shenanigans. And I said, Histrionics, I think that's the right way to describe it, right? In terms of, like, especially, like, on the ice, like, you're just so much flopping around and trying to draw calls on both sides. I would say, like, Marshan, understandably, gets most of the attention. It's happening all over the ice, regardless, though. And we've seen a bunch of penalties as a result.

Now, what I'm – and that's, I think, been the unavoidable storyline here, right? because the Bruins powerplay has scored five goals in like under 50 minutes of power play time. One of them was, as you noted, in your piece honey, be right inside an empty netter by Bradmarshime, but we'll still count it. The Leaf's power play has scored one goal in over 20 minutes on the power play themselves. And this isn't necessarily shocking because the Leafs have a lot of firepower. The Bruins penalty kill has historically been really good and a strength of theirs. And this year, the Leaf's penalty kill has been quite bad.

It was the worst out of any, other than, Islander's any playoff team and the Bruins power play had struggled down the stretch but still was relatively good in balance. And so what we've seen there has kind of dictated the flow of this series. Now, I think we know historically the trend that first couple games of the postseason, the refs call a lot and then back half of the series, they tend to put their whistles away, let the boys play, as you'll say. And so if that happens in this season,

series, that could change the outlook of it because so far the advantage has been so heavily skewed towards the Bruins on special teams. And if it's more at 5-1-5, I think that does change the outlook of this. But I guess that remains to be seen just because it's happened previously, doesn't mean it necessarily will happen in this one because their bowl teams are just trying to draw so many calls the entire time. So we'll see. But I think that's kind of the main talking point here for me is the special teams, all that stuff. And just beyond the officiating itself, kind of how that's dictated the flow of the series. Yeah, and, you know, I think when you look at how the games have been played at five on five, obviously Toronto has a pretty commanding lead in most of the underlying numbers.

Like not, maybe commanding is slightly overstating it, but like a solid enough lead where you'd say at five on five, they've been the better team for probably two of the three games, right? and if the Leafs could score on the power play and this is not a new problem for them. I think there was a Jonas Siegel article on the Athletic today kind of being like this has been a problem for quite a bit longer than I think a lot of people would realize if they didn't pay a ton of attention to the Leafs in the second half.

But, you know, ultimately the problem for me boils down to at five on five, it's been pretty much even in terms of goals. And that's with the Leafs kind of pushing the Bruins around a little bit. And so I don't know if I kind of chuck that up to Samsonov is not as good as either of the Bruins goalies, although obviously that's the case. Or the lack of William Neelander negatively affecting

Toronto's offense, you're just going to move guys up the depth chart and they're not the deepest offensive team. And like some of the decisions Sheldon Keefe has made like hard matching Matthew Nyesk and Steve Fassar and Agons like you're going to get killed if you do that. I don't know why you think that's a good idea, you know. But yeah, ultimately to me, like I said, it's just like the least. the Leafs love losing. They don't have answers for what the Bruins are doing.

And so they're going, Brett Marshan sure is diving a lot. And that's like, this is kind of what I expected, where the Bruins not even a particularly great team this year, I would say, finish ahead of the Leafs anyway, because, again,

they mostly have the goal tending, is why I would say that happened. And the Leafs just don't have an answer. for anything they're doing. I'll take you one stuff further. They don't. Okay. I was going to say if we had, if it hadn't changed in the final, whatever, 48 hours of the regular season and we got Tampa Bay, Boston instead, I would have picked a light thing in that series.

Might have been wrong, but I just, I would have thought like for everything we said, I would have been. I would have been extremely defensive. I don't think he actually will cook against them. And I think that's going to be enough on the power play in this series. And instead, they got this matchup. So I think a lot of it is. very interesting. You mentioned that article in kind of the power play second half of the season. If you were paying attention becoming a bit of a lingering issue, I'll take that even a step

further. This has been in the postseason, aside from last year's round one where they just scored a bunch of shots against Basilevsky. Not only is the power play dried up, but the offense in general has gone missing. And so that's what makes it so ironic, this pursuit of getting more defensive and physical and tougher on the back end. It's like, no, this team's issue for years now in the postseason has been creating offense when the game slows down and becomes more tightly contested and checked and more difficult to create, they haven't really had a lot of solutions. And yet they keep going in the opposite direction trying to rectify that.

And so I think that's what makes it all the more kind of baffling in my opinion. Yeah, no, like I said this a lot. Like over the years, the one impression I've really gotten from this Leafs team is that their coach doesn't know how to. to how to get this team like, you know, pointed in a single direction and then get them to go in that direction. You know what I mean? Like, they just, he's a guy without answers ever.

Like, any, any playoff, has he ever been like, oh, I know exactly what the problem is. Let's, here's what we're going to do to fix it. I don't think so. And what's this five years of, of him coaching them into the, playoffs and them not playing particularly well? You know, it's it's such an obvious

answer to what their problem is even though they, you know, like I said, they have depth problems and all that kind of thing. Mitch Marner like completely disappears for for large stretches of these games, year after year. But to me it just boils down to Jim

Montgomery is a good coach and Sheldon Keith is not. In a lot of ways. Well, what I find surprising and to that point is the first two games are in Boston, and so they have last change. And so they're going to clearly make a point of getting whatever defensive assignments they want and prioritized against Matthews, right? And Matthews is so good and he's so clearly, like, I love David Bastrodak and he's so phenomenal in so many ways.

You watch these games. I'm like, Austin Matthews is just so far and away the best player on the ice, whatever he's out there. Like, regardless of who's out there. Like, his dominance and gravity with the puck is just like off the charts. So it doesn't really ultimately matter that much. But the coach's job is to make, to like manufacture opportunities to press down on that advantage, right?

And like help him out by feeding him some softer matchups when he can to make sure that they like double down on it and score more often than not. And in game three, they come home. And the most common matchup is like he plays 13 and a half minutes. Over nine of them are against Linholm and Carlow again. Right. Some are against McAvoy. He's like never out there against Lorae Wetherspoon or Shaddenkirk.

And if I was just trying to map this out, like on the one hand, I get just feeling confident that he's going to be able to win regardless of who he's out there against. And so you don't want to go out of your way trying to worry about that. It's like, all right, we're going to say Matthew's out and he's going to do his thing regardless. But the way he creates is like he's so physically imposing and especially moving around the offense only gets lost. And I think for like weaker defenders, that's really challenging to try to deal with because they're just not nearly good enough to like keep up with him in that way. And so I would just be wanting to have him out there whenever I could in situational

minutes to just eat against them. And for whatever reason, they haven't really accomplished that yet. And, you know, kudos to Brandon Carlo, who I think has remarkably been the best ruins defenseman so far. I just, I certainly did not see that. coming out of my mouth. I've been, he's good at, like, defending off the rush

and he uses reach well, but I think he's a pretty limited player in many ways. And in the series, like he's been just so good. Like, every stat you look at, he's dominated.

And I think that's been remarkable considering how much he's playing against Matthews. Yeah, I think part of the thing for Matthews is what, I'm looking at it here. McAvoy and Lynn Holm, they aren't playing very much together

and they're playing like 49 minutes a night between the two of them. So let's call it 45 minutes in every game that those are the matchups that somebody has to take. And you're right. There's still a quarter of the game where you can be like really trying to ease Matthews into that.

They've only had the one home game. but so like you're right there's opportunities there that the chelden keep just isn't taking advantage of and you know to me i just i come to expect it at this point you know what i mean like i with this coach like they they just kind of can't it's not like this is a new problem i guess is my point of of just getting completely the other coach is running them out of the bill is running him out of the building. And again, like, if he's doing kind of what John Cooper is doing and being like, we know what the problem is, we're going to, we're going to address it.

But he's like, Rad Marchand, boy, this guy, drawn penalties, it's ridiculous, you know, like, it's how good he is, is unbelievable. And it's just like, if you, again, I kind of, I kind of take the, the vibes based approach to a lot of this stuff, like parsing what coaches are saying and stuff. And much like Jim Montgomery saying, it's not fair that we have to spend the extra two days in Toronto or whatever. It's very loser-brained to me to be like,

the calls, you know? You've gotten 11 power plays. You've scored once. Like, I don't want to hear they, it's not like they've gotten 14 power plays. They've gotten fewer than you have. and the number one thing you talk about after the game, and I get it,

like if you're a coach, you're trying to take pressure off of Mitch Marner, who's getting killed by the local media and the local fans. I get that, but it's just like, if that's what you're leading with, it indicates to me that I'll give you a great example. Okay.

In the NCAA playoffs this year, Quinipeak, one of the best teams in the regular season year after year, reigning national champions. They lose in the first round of their conference playoffs to a I would say, meaning no offense here, significantly inferior

opponent. And the first thing when they lose their coach does is he's like, I'm embarrassed because it's my job to get these guys ready. I didn't I did not come prepared. I did a bad job. Like I'm embarrassed that we got to this point.

Sheldon Keith. He's like, oh, these records are are killing us. There's such a, there's such a huge difference to me in, in how a coach approaches things. Again,

just how you can tell they know what the answer is and they don't know what the answer is. And Sheldon Keefe has never to me in his entire career appeared as though he's in the former camp, always in the ladder. Doesn't know what's going on out there. Rue.

I will say though, just in his defense, or whatever defense I can cobble together here. Has there been a bigger whiner in the past 10 years than like John Cooper in this regard where he just makes so many comments? And like Paul Maurice last year during Florida's run with like flashing the 50 or whatever 5-1, however many like penalties had been called against them versus for them. Like I get it in the sense that like it's the coach's job to posture this way.

And I do actually think you're gaming the refs. Yeah. It has an effect because if you just. keep being this vocal about it, certainly I guess you can make the argument that it could backfire in the sense that you could get a petty referee that's like, oh, you think that was bad, let me show you now, like, because you're whining trying to show us up. But I think for the most part, it does have an effect where if you complain, especially I'd say more so in a game than after the game. Yeah. Well, I do think you're going to earn your team a few extra calls.

To your point, though, the 5-1 thing. That's what he's saying, you had 5 power, they had 5 power, My team only had one. True. What Sheldon Keith get to say about it? It rings a bit more hollow when you've drawn more, when you've had more opportunity, certainly. That and again, historically, the problems the Leafs are having right now

are the problems they had last year, the year before the year before, right? And so you want to talk about ringing hollow. It's like, I got the same problems on my hand. And you know whose fault it is? somebody else's. Yeah.

No, I'm with you. I'm just saying you can make the argument easily that it's like, oh, he's standing up for his guys, right? Because what else is you going to say? It's like, no, I, yeah, I acknowledge that. And again, I think that I think if nothing else, it's like I said, providing cover for some of the underperformers like a, like a Mitch Marner, right? Yes.

But I just, I think they're just not doing a good enough job, like you say, of putting their best players in a position to succeed where, again, like, your, your trail, okay, throw, you can kind of throw game on it at the window. That was just kind of like a, yeah, I got, I got away from a disaster for the Leafs. Yeah, for sure. But, and then they win game two, but like, again, like, that's Austin. I can't remember who was on the ice for the, for the one Matthews goal in game two. It was against McAvoy.

Yeah, okay. So, but so they got away from the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, Lundholm matchup. And I actually like him versus McAvoy because I feel like McAvoy tries to engage him physically much more. I mean to the point where like literally is taking him down and stuff. He can't. But I actually, I think like the way to defend him is more so with like the stick work

and like the reach and trying to frustrate him that way, the way Carlo and Linholm do. Whereas McAvoy gets in a space, but Matthews is just such a beast that he actually winds up losing that battle more so. And you got to saw that on that alley-up goal where he like tried to like meet him there at the puck physically and Matt. He's just like, yoink, I'm just going to, I'm bigger and stronger. Bye, bye. Yeah. It's over.

No, I'm one with you. Like, there's so much nuance to this. At the same time, though, like, Marner's played 40 minutes at 5-1-5. They've scored the one goal. It came in game three off a nice pass by him, but that's been so few and far between. And if that was not happening, all of a sudden, none of this really necessarily matters to the degree it does right now. And that's why we're kind of harping on it.

And I do think, like, they really miss William Elander. I thought that our pal, Jack Kahn, did a really interesting video on Twitter today where he was sort of showing the differences between how Matt Marner changes his game in the playoffs and the negative effects that has, whereas Willie Nielander, and this frustrates people at times because it leads to mistakes and whatnot, but he's just so himself at all times that he never changes his game. And so what the result is, he creates a lot off the rush because he's like, all right, I'm just going to keep attacking the way I always do.

And that's actually what this team really needs against the Bruins. and they just don't have enough of without him out there. So obviously, if you can come back or if they can get going on a 5-1-5, maybe this series swings, but I do think it's going to be back and forth the way it has so far. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about cons my picks, and you did your annual tradition of it will be cool if they won rankings, but we'll have to save that for next time I have you on.

And I think both those topics can be later on the postseason. I will say, though, you were way too low on Edmonton in your, it'll be cool if they won rankings, just because I don't remember where I had them. I think they were like fifth or six or something, which is fine. I think that's fair. Like, it's just, it's not as, it's not as like fun when it's like, oh, the team that was insanely good all year.

Yeah, it's pretty cool if they win. I guess. It just needs to happen once, though, just because I cannot deal with people being like, yeah, butting McDavid and Dreis Idol. Like, they're just like, unequivocally the coolest. And so the sooner they win And then we can stop dealing with people trying to diminish their accomplishments. So, okay, you want to plug some stuff?

Yeah, up yourinkside.com. You can read my, it would be cool if they won rankings. You can read the stuff I wrote today about, well, a lot of the same leaf stuff we just reinterrogated or whatever. But also I talk about David Quinn and making it work in Utah and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, and then the Puck Soup podcast, you can hear me once again. Just get mad about how I feel like Shelton Keith is letting the Leafs down. So, yeah, there you go.

I love it because I feel like there's so much overlap here where my plugs are, go subscribe to EPIRN's hide. Go smash the five-star button for the podcast. and while you do so, also do so for BucSoup. And then make a Discord account. If you're not in there, join the PDOCS Discord. You can hop in the Bucsup one as well. You can just get in on all the stuff.

So doing two birds of one stone all the way across the board. R.L, this was a blast. Thank you for coming on and chatting. Enjoy these upcoming games. I was going to say enjoy the rest of the postseason, but we will certainly have you on soon here. So enjoy it. In the meantime, you're the man.

Thank you for coming on. Thank you, everyone for listening to the Hockey, podcast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.