The Hockey PDOcast - Game 1 Takeaways

Episode Date: June 5, 2023

John Matisz joins Dimitri to talk about Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, takeaways we can glean from the opener, and what to watch for as the series progresses. This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty.The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

2015. It's the Hockey P.D.O.cast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey Pee-Ocast. My name is Dimitri Filippovich. And joining me is my good buddy, John Mattis. John, what's going on in? Not a whole lot. Just sitting here after game one trying to figure out what went well for Vegas, what went not so well for Florida. And yeah, really good time of year. Yeah, well, we had about, I guess not 48 full hours, let's say 36 hours here. to marinate on game one's result over the weekend. And we're going to try to, we're recording this early. We're going to try to get it out there

so people can hopefully listen before game two goes this evening. So a little recap, a little preview, get our head on right and thinking about what happened in game one and what to look forward to in game two. Let's get into what's the biggest story for you here in terms of what happening game one, whether it's something that happened that followed the, script of what we expected or whether it's something where you were curious to see it heading in

and then maybe it went totally differently than you even anticipated. Well, I'm going to throw a particular player at you. We talked actually via DM about Shea Theodore and Brandon Montour before the series, where I was thinking, you know, Montour is this X factor for the series because you look over at Vegas's blue line and go, is there an equivalent there? Is there a guy that can do what Montour does, which is become a fourth forward, you know, play those really extensive minutes and just affect the game offensively in a really special way? And usually that's Shea Theodore. When he's firing, he is, you know, some kind of an equivalent to Montour.

And throughout the playoffs, we haven't quite seen that. But, you know, game one was essentially the Shea Theodore game as far as a guy's playing starring roles. And, you know, it shows up in the score sheet. Obviously, he scores and he played a big role in the game-winning goal as well for Vegas. Marchersville scoring off that Stevenson below the goal line pass. But I just thought all around, you know, it looked like A-plus Chey Theodore as far as the way he can walk the blue line. The way he can, the thing with him in terms of like the puck moving, puck rushing,

that separates him from a lot of modern day defensemen is the size. Like his puck protection is right up there. And I don't know what happened in the first, whatever, 15, 16 games of Vegas' playoff run. And I'm sure there's an A plus game in there somewhere or at least an A game. But he found it for game one of the Stanley Cup finals. And that's absolutely massive. No, I mean, he was fighting it up until his point. Certainly in the preview, we noted it as well where he had been such a difference maker

previously for this team and whether it's you know he missed pretty much the final month of the regular season essentially uh with injury and whether he's just not right there or whether i'm not sure it's like an adjustment in terms of role right because for all the praise that we give about how Vegas has really distributed their ice time evenly and you look even in game one right where i think theodore might have been like fifth or sixth amongst a Vegas defenseman in five on five ice time now all of them are really closely packed together but they're essentially relying on You know you're going to rely on Patrangelo Martinez pair, certainly, but they're relying on that White Cloud Hague pair,

which also played really well and made an impact in game one. They were using them in like the Matthew Kachuk matchup, right? And then so that leaves you with Shay Theuter where he's almost being used as like a luxury item, a third pair to send defensemen essentially at times, right? And so maybe there's a bit of an adjustment there as well. I'm not sure what the case is, but this was exactly what we've come to love from this player. And, you know, a lot of the attention goes to the move he puts on Anthony Duclair at the blue line to kind of put him in the blender, shake free, and then step into that shot and beat Bobrovsky. But he set the table for that at the start of that shift where he gets the first shot off, right, which which kind of, I think, slows down Duclair a little bit because he gets a piece of it and blocks it.

But he wound up getting two or three shots on net in that shift before that final one that went in. and it was a lot of that trademark offensive zone activity where he's highly involved, super active, trying to attack and not just standing stationary at the blue line. And so you're right, that was, that was cool because he is the one player that they have that fits that kind of stylistic mold and can sort of play the foil to everything you see Brandon Montere doing all season, all postseason for the Panthers. Yeah, and I just think that on paper, Vegas has more talent. I don't know if there's much denying that.

Obviously, in the gold tending department, you can go, okay, Brabowski versus Hill on paper, or, you know, obviously Kachuk is a huge difference maker. But I think if you go through the depth of these, you know, the forward lines and the defense, you side with Vegas. So if, if the, theater can play to his potential, that's just such a boon. Because as you mentioned, like, the Vegas defense is just so long and so good at, you know, this is sort of their whole style under Cassidy, so good at protecting their goalie, insulating their goalie,

that if you can get just a little bit of offense from Theodore, it just, the value just goes through the roof. And just while we're talking about the Vegas blue liners, I thought it was hilarious that Nick Hague, again, was just smiling at an opposing player as they punched him in the face. Like, he did that against Domi in the last series, and he certainly did this again with, I believe it was Bennett and Kachuk punched him.

him in the face within like five seconds. It happened twice in this game because previously when I was watching it live, I didn't notice it. And then in preparation for today's show, I got up early this morning, put the game back on and rewatched it. And I think it might have been the end of the second period where he bumped into after the whistle, he bumped into Brendan Montour in the neutral zone and then got in another one and also took another post whistle punch and was just laughing it off.

And he's really embraced that role of just kind of like troll. the other team essentially, right? But he's playing a huge role. I mean, White Cloud scored the goal. He hit the post as well. But that pair was used most primarily against Matthew Kachukh's line in this game. And with them being at home and being able to pick and choose the matchups, that's awfully telling of how Bruce Cassidy feels about the way they're playing, right?

Yeah, I thought White Cloud and Hague played well. But I also was, I don't know if like happy for White Cloud was the right way to put it, but I was a little worried that he was going to be a bit of a goat in this game because the puck goes off his shin pad, right? The Declare goal. And he was on for another goal earlier in the game. I can't recall who scored. I think it might have been the stall,

a shorthanded goal where he's like trying to find his stick in the corner and he's way too late for the coverage. So I feel like, you know, personally for White Cloud, he might have been down on himself, even though he had a good game. And then he obviously has the fantastic game-winning goal that, you know, totally redeems his fumbles there. Well, here's a note on the Vegas blue line.

line and this ties into the theater goal that we mentioned, and the White Cloud one, to be honest. The point shots in this game, I had them at 12 to 6 for Vegas, right, which is very, I think Florida's used to that after the series they just played against Carolina. The key distinction here, though,

and something I would highly recommend watching closely as this series goes along is Vegas definitely made a concerted effort of getting into the middle of the ice on those shots as opposed to just sort of spraying it from the edges of the offensive zone. Like you could see that Theodore and White Cloud on the goals they score, but also Hague and Petrangelo,

they would get it kind of on the periphery. And when they were afforded the time to do so, they would actively get it into the middle, improve the shooting angle, and pose much different challenges to the Florida, I thought defensively, then they'd really faced up until this point. And so there was this stat that I saw

where Bobrovsky had only given up two goals against so far this postseason on shots coming from above the face-off circles, which makes sense, right? He's done such a phenomenal job as skeptical as I've been of his goals, they've expected. One thing you can say for him is he really has not been giving up bad goals or goals from distance, right? If he's been getting beaten, it's been full marks to the other team for winning battles in front of him.

And in this case, he gave up those two, which were very uncharacteristic for what he's based so far this postseason. And I think part of it is they were a bit further out, but also they were just significantly more dangerous angles they were being shot from than a lot of what he faced in the previous couple rounds. Yeah, I think that's a really good observation with the defenseman trying to shoot from the middle because it's so obvious on the White Cloud goal where he receives the puck and can easily just shoot it from where he was, which was a little off center,

but he sort of backs into the middle of the ice and fires it through traffic. And that goal in particular, Dim, I'm curious about, you know what what pieces of it that you really enjoyed because to me it was a thing of beauty like so the puck rims around or or is on the boards uh for march assault he chips it out to to ickel it sounds like ikel's calling for it like you can't really decipher who's making the noise but someone's calling for it is probably ikel so i love that when there's sort of like a communication there and you see it executed and then ikel kind of slows down on the entry into Florida zone as he's as he's known to do and then obviously he feeds barbachev he gets the chance

ikel recovers the rebound finds barbachev in in the corner there um and then the one i if you freeze the frame there's four florida players watching barbachev like they're all just glued on the action which makes sense off a rebound because you're kind of trying to recalibrate and you're in a bit of a survival mode and then but the key is that the other player to claire is I'm not sure why. I guess he was coming back on the back check, but he's right beside Brovsky, like way out of position

when he should be at the point. And obviously, Barbachev realizes that, feeds way cloud. And as you noted, he moves himself to the center of the ice, fires through traffic. And it was just a very chef's kiss kind of goal for,

for Vegas, a rush team that can be very opportunistic. Well, and I think it also demonstrated what's made them so much more dangerous and effective offensively this postseason as well, right? Where in the past, where they've gotten themselves into trouble is when that initial rush opportunity doesn't work out whether the other goalie makes a save or whether for whatever

reason the puck bounces. And that happened in this one. You mentioned to Claire. I think part of why he was out of position was he fully sold out on the back check to try to. I think he was one that dived across and kind of slowed the puck down on that initial rush cross-hice pass, right? And so that negated that initial attempt. And then instead of, you know, becoming frustrated.

taking a low percentage shot ensuing from that, which is what they might have done in the past and made it easy in the other team. Instead, it was a very calculated second step of the offensive attack, right, where they get it, they work it back up, but then White Cloud gets into the middle and improves the shot angle. And so you could sort of see that the initial wave of offense, but then also the second layer, which is what's been such a key part of their offensive success. And they've been, you know, we mentioned they've been dominant for all the lack of power play scoring they've had frustratingly. So at 5-on-5, they've been the best offensive team in the league this entire postseason. And that carried over in this game

where they scored a couple there as well. I believe you made the note in your playoff or sorry, your Stanley Cup preview about Vegas's dominance at 5-on-5. They're now up to 51 goals 4 and 24 against. That is wild when you're playing the best teams in the league. And also, I noticed in the broadcast, about five minutes. minutes into the third period. Vegas had an ozone possession time of 11 minutes and Florida had six. So they were dominant in that aspect. And that's not to say that Florida had a poor game.

Like I thought it was fairly even like 5545 as far as Vegas controlling. And that's not like, you know, citing any numbers specifically, but just, you know, eye test. I thought it was, you know, fairly close, although Vegas had the advantage. So it was an interesting game in that sense. and I wonder what you think about the neutral zone because I found that Vegas really stretched the ice there and I don't know.

I'm finding that Cassidy is maybe, you know, whether it's as you mentioned, the defenseman shooting from the middle of ice, that seems like a coaching move like, hey guys, do not shoot from your points, your left or right points, get to the middle. And I feel like the neutral zone, usually that's a coached thing.

So I would give the upper hand, certainly to Cassidy. right now as far as who shined the brightest in the coaching department in game one. Yeah, well, on the note of like the eves and flows and how Florida played, you know, you would have thought that after the nine days off or whatever, if you were going to make the argument that they'd have some sort of rust or some sort of negative effect of not being able to just carry over whatever momentum they'd had previously, it certainly didn't show in this game, right?

Where I think with three and a half minutes left in the first period, shots on goal were eight to three. For Florida and Al Vegas, it had a few opportunities and it either missed the net or Panthers defenders had blocked the shots. So it wasn't like they just were being completely suppressed and stifled. But you would have taken that game script, certainly if you're the Panthers, right? Like, all right, we were up on nothing. You scored the shorthanded goal.

We're dominating on the shot counter. Like, this is exactly how we wanted to ease into this series after whatever rust issues we might have had. And I thought they were the better team in the first period. I thought, you know, Vegas clearly gave a little push in the second period, but I thought it was still very even. and then the third period, the wheels just kind of came off, right? I think scoring chances were 8 to 1 at some point in the third period for Vegas.

The T&T broadcast showed, like laid into the period. It wound up maybe 9-2 or 10-2 for Vegas in the third period alone. And that was a period where, you know, you go into it, it's 2-2. The game is there for the taking. And so Vegas really was able to kind of put the clamps on them and execute a lot of the stuff that we've been marveling about from them all postseason. I think to tie that into your question of the neutral zone, that's where you could really see it,

where they started sort of dictating how the game was being played, and it really felt like the ice was starting to tilt more and more in their favor. So that surprised me a little bit, because you would have thought, if anything, the start of the game, that's where it would have looked like, but it took a while for them to sort of start leaning on Florida a little bit that way. And the Panthers got frustrated, obviously,

and I don't think it's necessarily stunning, you know, for all the talk about a fishie, and all like the Panthers got job in this one. I really don't think they did. I think Vegas got away with a few that they probably could have been penalized on and they weren't. But Florida all postseason has been walking this fine line of after every whistle, engaging and really pushing the envelope as much as they can.

And for the most part, they've gotten away with it. And this one they didn't. And it's almost like that. You know, the quote of like, the guy, it's like, quote from man to stab, what are you going to do? stab me.

It's like, It's like in this where it's like, oh, what are you going to do? Call this penalty after I punch this guy in the face after the whistle. And then the reps are like, yeah, we will. And then they're surprised, I guess, because this is our frustration with a lack of consistency, I guess, within game and from game to game where you never know what you're going to get. But by the letter of the law, I think it was it was perfectly fine that they were being penalized for infractions that they were committing. Yeah, the only, I would say, egregious non-call was when Stevenson cross-checked or boarded cousins in the third. third but other than that it was a lot of sort of like okay i guess that's a penalty or okay like that's

non-call like there was one the broadcast showed where i think it was the third period where uh on the penalty kill barkov like one position of the pocket was trying to get it out and then marshes so looked like he got the stick in either on the hands or kind of hooked them and like it didn't ultimately make a material difference because the panthers wound up clearing the zone and taking it down the down to the other end of the ice but it was one where i was like okay that probably could have been called as well. There were a few of those, but it wasn't anything like super egregious that changed the outcome of the game, right? Yeah, just to circle back on your thoughts on scrums and I guess playing with fire when you're Florida, I was thinking the same

thing coming in the series as far as, you know, on a more micro level with Kachuk. He is a master at it. I mean, it's probably him and Brad Marchand, right, as far as the pests who can find a way to get away with certain things that. may be called on other guys or just they they you know they'll slash a guy but it'll be so soft that you couldn't possibly call something on them and i felt like this was a game where for whatever reason you know it could have been kachuk going a little too far over the line or the officials going okay buddy like that's that's enough of you um but his his effectiveness in that area seemed to to wane and i also found it hilarious when like uh

he's like harassing a guy like Mark Stone and Stone like after a whistle. Like there was one point where he's like pushing him and slashing him. And Stone literally just ignored him and moved on with his life. And I know that their buddies off the ice. So I'm sure that factors in when he's like, okay, Matt, like I understand what you're trying to do here. So that's something to watch for certainly in game too is Florida, a team that gets penalized a lot, whether it's a regular season or at parts in the playoffs, at parts they've been, quite disciplined if we're talking about just penalty minutes.

But it's their style and sometimes it gets them in trouble. Sometimes it doesn't. Game two, I guess, will be another test of that. Yeah, I thought Florida, you know, offensively, they wind up only scoring the two goals here. I think there are positives to take away from this game. I know they wind up with only the two scoring chances I mentioned in the third period. And one was, you know, they're already down four or two.

I believe Sam Ryanhard got a shorthanded breakaway at the end there. for the most part, they weren't really able to get going at any point in the third period, which is disappointing because the game was there for the taking for them. But if you come away from it, it's like, all right, we hit the post three times, I believe, right? Cachuk on the power play, Barkaw, all about the rush, and then Montour, shortly before he, before Declare scored to end the second period, you've got the cousins one where for all the marveling about what an effort it was by Aden Hill to, you know, as he's sliding out of the crease, reach out, use the full extent of his frame to get his paddle out there and at least provide

some sort of obstruction to stop the puck from crossing the goal line. That's one where clearly if you're the Panthers and your NIC cousins, you're like, all right, that's, regardless of that effort, that should be a goal. There were a few of those where it felt like they did everything but put the puck into the net. And so for them losing four two in this game or five two and only scoring the two, it wasn't necessarily for a lack of chances on their part, especially in the two periods, I did think there were positives to take from that performance on that end of the ice. So, you know, that was one of my concerns. I was like, all right, well, Vegas has done such a good job of controlling the neutral zone this postseason and stifling dominant rush attacks in Edmonton

and Dallas on their way to this point of the Stanley Cup final. If Florida can't get some easy opportunities there, how are they going to sustain, create sustainable offense? In this case, I did feel like against this stingy Vegas D, they did put up a pretty, pretty admirable offensive performance, right? Certainly could have scored three, four goals very easily if you play this game again. And so if they keep doing that, I do think there are positives to take them as it wasn't just, it's not moral victories this point of the season. It won't do any good certainly.

But in game one of a series, I do think there is stuff to drop and then and be like, all right, we need to do more of this heading into games two and beyond in the series. Well, we've seen it throughout the playoffs with, it doesn't matter what team we're talking about. like each series there's a feeling out process. And obviously the team that figures that out sooner than later, usually as a team that wins. But I think that Florida certainly isn't in trouble in that aspect. And they did generate enough offense to win.

And I think the timing of that Cousins, you know, point blank open net stop by Hill is really important. I mean, it was won one at the time. it was like a minute into the second period. If he scores that, all of a sudden, you know, what does the game look like? We talk a lot about score effects. And I wonder for a team like Florida who loves to dump and chase and loves to forecheck, does that change their game a little bit in terms of that sliding door moment

where they, instead of it being 1-1 a minute into the second period, it's 2-1, and they're feeling a little bit better about themselves. You know, the first goal was a shorthand-a-goal, which, I don't know if there's been any study's done, but that seems to lift the bench up a little bit more than most goals. Well, actually, in terms of that cousin's chance, do you place the blame on cousins not burying it? Yeah, that is a good call.

Or do you give Hill credit? Because some people give Hill credit, but you're like, you shouldn't be in that spot to start with. Like a desperation save looks great on a highlight reel. But, I mean, if you talk to most goalie people, they go, you never want to be in that situation. And the save itself is, I wouldn't say luck, but it's like, it's a really high percentage that that's going to go in, right?

So, yeah, I don't know. I wouldn't say he was like too casual with it. I don't think he, like, waited too long or anything. But maybe he, you know, if he could have lifted the puck a little bit there, I don't know. Yeah, Kevin Woodley talks about us all the time, right, where if you're a goalie, you're basically taught to just cover the middle of the net or in this case, just literally just put your paddle down because there's a good chance that the shooter will try to do the bare minimum essentially to get the puck into the net. They won't try to, you know, lift it top quarter and go bar down

on that one. It's going to be a very sort of like simple. When you see that much net, you're kind of just trying to make sure you don't miss the net. And so in this case, just getting his paddle out there or sometimes when you see a goalie moving across laterally east to west, it's just a matter of get, you don't have to cover the far post. You just need to get back into the middle of the cage because the shot will probably go there. And so I feel like that's kind of what happened here. That's, I mean, that's one where, you know, it's a great effort by Hill. And obviously everyone's harkening back to the brain hold, the save in the same ring,

at the same end of the ice. But that needs to be a goal, right? Like, that's, that's one where you have to come away from that with someone to show for it. I don't, you know, for the game, I had scoring chances at 5-1-5, 12-12. Overall, I had them 18 to 15 for Vegas. And the reason why I bring this up is because if you look at natural statric, they have Vegas down with 21 high danger attempts in this game, which means that one third of every single shot attempt they took in this game was deemed high danger. They created some looks in this game. That seems very extreme from my perspective, rewatching this game twice now.

And Florida is doing something that is just absolutely bewildering the NHL's shot data because there's, This is now the third straight series essentially, right, against Toronto, against Carolina, now this where there's some sort of strange accumulation where I guess where the shots are coming from maybe it's being deemed as a high danger opportunity because stripping away context from it, you're just like, well, it came from in tight. So this must have been a great opportunity. And then you watch it once, you watch it back again. And just for the life of me, I don't know how they came across 21 high danger opportunities

for Vegas in this game. That seems way too high for me. Now, you know, they got 18 scoring chances by my account. I'd say probably 12 to 14 of them were high danger. And so I think it was much more even maybe than that would look on paper where it's like 21 to 10 or something on natural statute. And you go, hmm, Vegas really dominated this one.

They certainly as the game went along, got the better of the action. But I thought Florida for the most part was able to kind of match a lot of what Vegas was creating offensively. Yeah, I mostly look at it as a 3-2 win. You know what I mean? Obviously, Stone had that great knock of the puck and goal to make it 4-2, and then the empty-netter means nothing.

So I look at it a lot as 3-2 as far as how the game was. I mean, the first, like, three or four minutes was pretty wild with the back-and-forth chances. And I thought that, you know, for the most part, for let's say 50 minutes, of the game, you could say it was fairly even. I think I would still give the advantage to Vegas in terms of controlling the play, but it wasn't to some great degree where the Panthers should be, you know, banging their heads against the wall, trying to figure out how can we create offense? They created offense.

Well, for those, I mentioned the 18 scoring chances for Vegas. Mark Stone had four of them himself. He set up three more. I thought he was tremendous in this game, even before that goal, which was the most Mark Stoney's goal. you're going to see. He had a takeaway, the shift before where he was able to kind of walk into the circle and rip a rister, which Bobrovsky stopped.

And then earlier in that shift, he had another takeaway that set up a kind of near tap-in from Stone to Howden, I believe, or from Stevenson to Howden, I believe. And then the Pac-Wan up circling around, Kachuk gets it, he turns it over. And Stone's effort in this was just full marks. And this was the first game where I really started thinking to myself, like, if he, if Vegas pulls this off and wins the Stanley Cup and he gets to lift the trophy he might like we just might never see him again or the trophy like he might like the NHL might just have to create a secondary Stanley Cup because Mark Stodd is just going to skate away like not even take his equipment off

just literally like get after in the celebration after the game just lift it up and then just run out of the rink and just never be seen again with it and so I don't know what's going to happen but I'm talking myself into just, I don't really care who wins this. I hope we get six more really exciting games regardless of result. But man, Mark Stone, just self-combusting in a post-game celebration when they win the Stanley Cup would be amazing theater. Yeah, for a guy that's like pretty stoic when you see him in interviews and, you know, it doesn't seem to be a guy that, I don't know, you know, was going to be in a commercial or something that promotes himself. like he's hilariously expressive on the ice.

You know, he's known for his celebrations after goals, especially when his teammates score, he just gets so fired up. And then when he doesn't score himself and the whistle blows, he's usually, you know, hitting his stick on his head or something. And he was just buzzing all game. I mean, he plays 20 minutes, 55 seconds. He obviously gets that goal.

For sport logic, he had eight attempts, seven on goal, four of them from the slot. And two cycle chances, one. four check chance, one rush chance. Like he was kind of doing it all. And also at four slot passes, he was setting up his teammates quite well. And as you mentioned, the two takeaways were not empty calorie.

They were full credit there. So it seemed like he was going to impact the game in some way or another. And obviously, that 4-2 goal is more of an insurance goal. It's not, you know, it didn't decide the game, but it sure seemed like he was going to get one or set up his teammate for one. by the end of it. Yeah, once again, you know, on brand, these shows are turning more and more

into an opportunity and platform for me to just absolutely rail on the NHL's data that they keep. They had Mark Stone at 22 takeaways heading into the Stanley Cup final. I put up like a five minute mixtape on my, on the Hocopiodeo guest YouTube channel of him taking the puck away.

I had him down for 45 takeaways. So there is, you know, they're undercounting significantly for a lot of players. I think you can probably bump up at least a few for everyone. but it really feels like for every amazing stone stat you see regarding his takeaways, it feels like that's probably not, I mean, that's certainly not doing justice to the actual magnitude of how often he is cleanly separating the opposition from puck possession

and then doing something productive with it moving to other way. And you saw that in this game. So really fun to watch, really cool to see him performing the way he had. And so I'm curious to see how the rest of that goes from. All right. John, let's take a quick break here. And then when we come back, we'll keep talking about game one and other observations from the start of the series.

You're listening to the Hockey PDO cast, as always streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. Breaking down the top stories in hockey and Elliot Friedman every day. The Jeff Merrick Show. Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back here on the Hockey PEDOcast with John Mattis. We're talking game one of the Stanley Cup final. John, another thing that I noticed in this game, which is a continuation of what we've seen, you know, you don't want to put too much stock into just the one game, but if it really does

act as an extension of everything we've seen up until this point, then it makes you go, all right, this is something that we need to kind of talk about more as this series progresses. From Vegas's perspective, they had the success, as we mentioned, getting into the middle of the ice. One thing they need to not try to do as often is try to stick handle around Sergey Mabrovsky when they get in tight. It felt like a couple times in this game they were trying to do so. And if something hasn't worked so far this postseason for people, it is trying to get around Bobroski's pads and pretty much everything low and in tight. And so, you know, on the one occasion,

Stone sprung Howden and he quickly shot it and he shot it basically right on a breakaway into Bobrowski's glove. And so that didn't wind up working out. But I much prefer that to the alternative day of trying to not get too cute, but try to, you know, work some sort of stick handling magic around him when that's just something that he has done so well all postseason. And I don't think you're going to really be beating him that way. So that's something to watch for it for me as a series progresses. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the book on Brobowski, isn't it? The guy's flexibility, his ability to go to East West and his crease. So, yeah, I don't know if it's just them adjusting to a new goalie. If it's them, um,

Yeah, like you said, getting too cute and not just dumbing things down. But that seems like an obvious fix on their side. And yeah, Brodowski was pretty good. And, you know, I wonder, you know, what you think of Eckblad and Forsling as the sort of shutdown pair in a lot of ways for Florida. Have you, did you think that they had a pretty good game? I thought that that Echblad was especially pretty, pretty impactful. Yeah, he was. I thought Forzling was too, right? He made a few plays where he got back and showed that, you know, ability to essentially backtrack and recover and use his skating to, you know, get in the way of, disrupt and break up rush opportunities that would be for the other team, right? He got one where he, like, against Eichol, he was able to essentially just snuff it out himself and prevent them from even getting a shot on net. So I thought, I thought they were good. I mean, Eckblad has impressed me this postseason where I really thought he had a really, tough regular season and in particular it looked like all of the injuries that have accumulated over

the past couple years had taken a player who already wasn't necessarily the most fleet of foot, especially defensively and really just expedited that process and really turned him into a liability at times, right? All the jokes of course about Brooks Keppka holding the traffic cone. But he's been much better now. At the start of this postseason, he was really struggling. with opposing for checks where he just like was not completing any clean zone exits. And part of that is a team's philosophy of essentially just trying to dump it into the neutral zone and let the forwards win those battles. And so I'm sure Paul Maurice was perfectly fine with him playing that way. But he's gotten smoother as the postseason has gone along.

And there was that sequence in particular, right, where he joined the rush on like a three on two and got the shot from the middle and then backtracked and broke up a potential rush opportunity for Vegas on the other end. And it was like, all right, this is something that we just did not see a lot from this guy throughout the regular season. Yeah, I feel like he's one of those players where we've seen an evolution, right? He's a first overall pick. He came in, build as a guy who could really contribute offensively. It was never, like you said, never a burner. But I don't think his skating was ever an issue. And he's always been a big dude, always had a heavy shot.

But I think he's become closer to something, you know, relating to a, a shutdown guy versus some sort of big time contributor unless it's on the power play. And I think that, you know, his hockey sense and just his makeup, I think, has always kept him, you know, even through the injuries, effective in some way or another. I don't think he's going to win any nor his trophies as maybe some projected when he was younger. But it's one of those guys where I have a lot of faith in him that he can evolve, that he can continue to evolve and that he'll find ways to impact the hockey game. It would actually be interesting to go back and just look at, you know, top five picks and

how some have adjusted and some have and, you know, obviously Sam Reinhardt. Or sorry, not Sam Reinhardt. Not so much Sam Reinhardt or anyways. But Sam Bennett would be obviously another great study in terms of, you know, the projection coming into the NHL and what he's turned into. I think Eklads in the same sort of conversation where the playing style. has changed and props to them for owning that and finding their niche. Well, and they've, you know, we've already seen that evolution take place as this postseason

has gone along where he gets injured early in that Broston Bruin series. They move him off the top power play, right? They use Montour as the one defenseman there finally after being pretty much the only team in the league that was still using two defensemen on their top unit power play. And they now are using him more in that shooter slot on the second unit with go stuff forsling essentially just trying to pump shots into the circle for him. And so they've taken away a bit of the offensive workload

in terms of using him as the trigger man at all times, which is something that he was doing more so earlier in his career. And now they're using him and Forerling more so in that defensive role, as you mentioned. And yeah, they've been good. I mean, speaking of Panthers and defensive value, I thought Barkov in this game was absolutely phenomenal as well. We mentioned all the stuff with Stone.

Right from the jump, he was making plays in a defensive zone, you know, short-handed, kind of jump in that cross-ice passing lane and preventing that east-west pass into the slot and knocking it into the stands. Just I don't know how many takeaways he was credited for in this game, but I bet I think he probably had at least three to four, if not more, as this game went along.

And so he was awesome. He also, one thing I noticed, I'm not sure how much of this was just as the game was naturally going, you know, progressing and how much it was by design. but he was getting a lot of room to skate into the offensive zone with the puck. It was almost like the Golden Knights were more worried about him as a facilitator and distributor than a shooting threat himself. And so there were a couple of times where he was able to essentially walk in and, you know,

he ripped one off the bar. He had another good look at Aiden Hill coming down the wing as well. That's something to watch for because part of my issue with him has been a lack of offensive aggression at times, right, where he does like to defer and maybe that's what Vegas was thinking. But he, with that amount of space, I like to see him step into that and use that shot because he certainly has the shooting talent to score, even if he does prefer to be a passer instead. And so if he keeps getting those looks, hopefully some of them will start to fall for him because he's played really well.

He doesn't necessarily have the eye-popping offensive production to match it. But for all the talk about how underrated he is or how good his two-way game is, and everything. Like, he has been full marks defensively all postseason, and he was once again in this game. And we didn't really wind up talking about it that much after the game, right?

Because his team lost. So a lot of the focus was on Vegas, but I thought Barkoff was absolutely sensational on this game. Yeah. And on the note of being underrated and the two-way game, I feel like we talk a lot about how he processes the game and his stick when we discuss his two-way game and his Selky caliber play. But I felt like in game one,

his strength was really on-disput. display. I mean, I can't remember who he hit, but there was one hit in the corner where he just bullied a guy, like, just stole the puck from him, sent him into the, into the boards, and even just just in the face off. You know who that was? Who? It was Jack Eichol. Was it? Yeah. You know the exact way. I can, you know, I can see it in my head, but I just, I can't quite translate it in terms of what exactly happened and who was involved. But there was that. And I just think in general, the strength, right? It's hard to, as a viewer, to really like appreciate it, but I think that's why opposing players find it so difficult to play against him is he's got the strength factor where

he'll help muscle you. And then if he's not doing that, he's taking away passing lanes. He's got that great hand eye. And he tracks really well in terms of picking you up early in the zone. So the guy's just all over you without taking penalties in a lot of ways. And he also just seems like a very unassuming guy in terms of like, you know, we talk, he's almost like the opposite of Mark Stone in terms of the expressions on the ice. I feel like Barcoff's got a lot of stoicism in his expressions. And hey, that can, that can in a very intangible way, make him harder to play against as far as trying to get in his head and trying to throw him off his game when he looks the same if they're up five nothing or down five nothing, right? So yeah, well, I just,

Barkov's just such a brilliant player. He is when he scored that goal, the highlight real goal in game two against the hurricanes in the previous round, right? The one where he faked going through the legs and then wound up dangling around Antiranta in that game. He did like a little fist bump after. And I saw someone tweet like, wow, Sasha Barkov just went absolutely wild celebrating after that one. And that was pretty much the extent of how crazy you're going to see Sasha Barkov get

after a cool play like that. So yeah, it's a very even keeled. But I really like what I saw from in this game. I was really excited about the matchups heading into this series. That's something we focused on a lot in our preview that I did with Thomas Rans last week, where I was curious to see in these first two games in Vegas, Bruce Cassidy has done such a good job of getting every single matchup he's wanted throughout this postseason, what they would do, right?

How they would use William Carlson, whether they use him to blanket Kachuk or whether they would use him against Barakov to free up, to not have to play against Barakov himself. And the answer was we didn't really see either of those. And I don't know how much of this was just because the game was a bit disjointed with the penalties and kind of the feeling out process between these two teams. I assume I presume we'll see kind of a cleaner game script in game two from a flow perspective and the matchups kind of settling into place and maybe us getting a better peek into how the coaches want this to play out. Because in this game, you know, Carlson plays only the 713 at 5-1-5. they're about as evenly spread as you're going to see he doesn't really play exclusively against anyone

and maybe Vegas wants to play it that way because Florida does have the three lines that you do have to account for right but I will say in those seven minutes shots on goal were five won Vegas and then William Carlson also played nearly three short-handed minutes and Florida didn't manage a single shot on goal with those as well so it was another continuation where there's probably four or five guys you know Theodore Stone you can can go on down the list of Aiden Hill of guys on the Golden Knights that got most of the credit for this game one win. And then sure enough, you look.

And every time William Carlson was on the ice, the opposition was able to get absolutely nothing offensively. So it was a very on-brand performance in that regard. And it's an extension of the rest of the postseason for him. Yeah, the matchups were definitely wonky. But one of the only ones that was consistent was Nick Waugh versus the Kachuk line. five minutes and 42 seconds at five on five, which doesn't seem like a lot, but it is when you when you break it down per line and the fact that line changes

aren't exactly always linked up. That was the matchup we saw in the opening face off as well, right? I believe it was Vegas's fourth line against the Kachukklin. But sometimes you see that, the opening face off and go, oh, this is just, you know, some sort of momentum attempt, some sort of tone setting move here. but that's what Cassidy went with, which, I mean, if they can pull that off, that's massive in terms of bringing up Michael, Stevenson, and Carlson, their lines to work their magic. I don't know if it's sustainable.

I mean, at the end of the day, it is still a fourth line versus a masterful player in Kachuk and his linemates. But as has been said by many people, you could argue that, you know, whether it's William Carrier, Nick Waugh, or. King Colossar? Yes, Keegan Colossar. Just excellent fourth liners on Vegas. That's where their depth really shows, especially when you line them up against what Florida's got. So I thought that was pretty interesting,

considering, as you said, just disjointed game, hard to play your matchups if you're Cassidy, but somehow he did get law out there versus Kachakat. And hey, like the Kachuk line didn't score five on five. So that's a huge win. Yeah, I mean, is it really a fourth line if Nick Waugh is centering it as a guy who spent successfully a lot of the Star Series on line two with Carlson and Riley Smith as a winger? And then what a luxury it is to be able to just bump him down and be like, all right,

well, he'll give us a bit more offensive punch as a playmaker. And also we just have him out there with these guys, like for all the, you know, Carriets forechecking and his like tenacity and puck pursuit. and Colissar as well, like having Waugh out there with him is a different look than when it's like a Teddy Bluger, right? Which is something they experimented with earlier this postseason, a slightly different dimension to that. And I'm curious because I think they started out with that game plan a lot against Edmonton

as well in round two. And as the series went along, they really just tried to get William Carlson out there as much as possible against McDavid's line. And so I wonder if we'll see that as well. But Florida is a trickier team to match up against because, they do have the three lines, especially if Etou-Lucerian is able to come back, right? And then that bumps Longberg down to their fourth line,

and that reinstates that very effective checking third line for Florida. It's more options, I guess, you have to account for than some of the other teams they've played so far this postseason. Sure. And another thing with the ice time, Barbershev led all Vegas forwards and five-on-five ice. And 1530. That's a big number.

And I think well-deserving. I mean, he had that primary assist on the game-winning goals. He was winning board battles constantly. He had that awesome reverse hit. He's just such a perfect compliment to what Jonathan Marchesol and Jack Eichael bring to the table. Like, they really found a perfect mix there. And I know that's easy to say when you get to the cup final and they're arguably the

best line on the team that's up one-nothing. But when you look at the actual playing styles and what they bring to the table, Vegas really found a nice mix there. All right. Do you have any other game one observations or things you're kind of watching for in tonight's game two or as this series goes on? Not really, but I just want to throw something out there

where Leon Drystead still leads the playoffs and playoffs and goals. He's got 13. And Rupa Hintz, William Carlson, Jonathan Marchesau, who scored in game one, are all at 10. in second. So that, I just want to throw that out there as a salute to Mr. Drysiddle and what he accomplished in much shorter runway here. And another sort of side note, this is not necessarily relating to game one or looking forward to game two, but it's kind of crazy how Shea Theodore, Brandon Montour, and Josh Mahura were all drafted by the Anheim Ducks,

who have just been a juggernaut in drafting defensemen since Martin Madden became their director of amateur scouting. And I just, I wrote this down, because I had to look it up. So since Madden joined the fold in Anaheim, which was 2008, they've drafted Linholm, Fowler, Gardner, Shea Theodore, Marcus Pedersen, Justin Schultz, Brandon Montour, Josh Mohera, Sammy Vatten, Josh Manson, and Jacob Magna.

That's just until 2018. And then you've got, you know, Drysidal and, Drysdale. Yeah. Drysdale, sorry. You got Drysiddle on the mine. Yeah, exactly. You know, Jackson Lacomb, you know, Tristan Luna.

Like, it's just... Oh, don't forget, Olin Zellwager. There you go. Like, it's, I just wanted to... Like, it's kind of a weird shout-out because, you know, three of these players are in the cup final and Anaheim is not. And there's a lot of those players I listed, especially from the first group that are not with the Anheim Ducks anymore.

So it's like bittersweet. But they've developed, and developed just a whole stable of quality NHL defensemen. So that was something I had to look up. No, they have. That's something they've certainly stuck out as an organization with. And while I'm sure it is agonizing for Ducks fans, especially with a guy like Shay Theodore who, you know,

everything he's done the past handful of years and also the circumstances under which they lost him because they had to protect Kevin B.XA, you know, certainly stings. I do think the crop of guys they have, some of them that you mentioned since 2018 that they've drafted are very exciting. And so, you know, they still have a lot of work to do to get to this level of a lot of the players you mentioned there. But at least, like, there's hope that there is a next wave of these young guys that will follow in those footsteps. So throwing the ducks fans a little bone there after all of the else they've taken this season. All right, John, well, this was a blast.

It was a fun game one. you know, it was, it was a bit wonky in terms of the disjointedness of it. But we saw a few breadcrumbs here. I think game two will give us a lot more to work with. And then we're going to have the extra day off before game three. And we'll be able to kind of key in on that and focus on everything we've seen so far in preparation for the rest of the series. So we'll do that on the PDO cast as this week progresses here. I'll let you on the way out, plug some stuff, let the listeners know where they can check you out and kind of what either stuff you put out recently or what you've gotten to works for the rest of the season.

Sure, yeah. So people want to find my stuff. Your best bet is to just go to my Twitter feed because it's all in one place. And that's Mattis, J-O-H-N on Twitter. And I'll be writing after game two, some looking ahead to game three of this series. So that's probably the one thing to shout out there. And otherwise, just working on some draft stuff. So yeah, thanks for having me on, Dimitri. Always a player. Nice, man. Yeah, well, it's looking forward to the rest of the series. It was great to have you all. We'll have you on again soon, I'm sure. And we will be back, as I said, tomorrow with another episode of HockeyPedio cast talking about everything we saw in game two. So looking forward to that. In the meantime, thank you to everyone for listening to us.

As always, streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.