The Hockey PDOcast - Game 4s, Conn Smythe Picks, and How Things Change in the Postseason

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

Ryan Lambert joins Dimitri to talk about last night's Game 4s, the "new" Flyers front office, Conn Smythe picks for every remaining team, and how things have changed in the playoffs.This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Philipovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dmitra Filippovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Ryan Lambert. Ryan, what's going on, man? What's up, bud? That was the most enthusiastic response you've given in your PEDOCast tenure. I'm trying, man, you know? I love it. I love it. I got to up the engagement. Yes, yes. All right, this is going to be a fun one. We're going to talk a bit about last night's, game fours, Leaves, Panthers, all those nights. And then we're going to talk about the listener questions we got for the mailbag,

a lot of really fun stuff to cover a lot of ground. Let's start with last night's games, though, while it's still slightly fresh on the mind. I told you before we started recording that we were going to do these games. And you're like, do I even remember a last night's Leas Panthers game? And I don't blame you because that was, I mean, round two in general has been really tough, right? And we're going to get a question in the mailbag later about this, about all the lopsided scores and how especially compared to round one, it feels like it's been significantly worse product. But, you know, this game was technically, it was close, right?

It was a 2-1 game. It came down to the wire. It, this series actually has been the one where I guess there was the 4-2 game in game one for the Panthers, but it really feels like all of these games have been kind of one-shot games. Still, though, the first three were entertaining, I thought, to varying degrees. Game four was if you're really into nothing happening for extended periods of time and, really good stingy defense than maybe it was your cup of tea but yeah for whatever reason despite the fact like panthers scored that power play goal kind of halfway through the third make it a one goal

game and you're like all right here comes a push here comes the drama maybe we'll get an exciting finish here and then the final seven or eight minutes just sort of came and went and nothing happened and it felt like it was like a regular season game there was that skirmish post whistle at after the buzzer yeah otherwise it was like it was almost like both teams were just like all right whatever let's go to game five. Yeah, it's crazy. Like the first period, especially, I'm sitting there watching it. Like, I go, I could have gone for a walk. I could have been looking at my phone. Like, nothing happened. It was an insane first period because it's just like, you know, I, and I feel like this was like kind of what the Leafs were looking for, right? They were like, oh, we're trying to, we're trying to stave off elimination and humiliation, quite frankly.

by just grinding this game to an absolute halt and and playing real conservative and all that kind of stuff. And that's what happened, right? Like, they got, they got a power play goal to, the bounce off on officials mean. Yeah. But like,

but like I'm saying like five on five, like they were very committed to absolutely nothing is happening tonight. They were. I think the shots on goal were stuck at five to three for the Leafs for like 11. straight minutes or something in the first period. That's very plausible to me. And it finished 25, 25. They held the Panthers to 1.3

expected goals generated in 55 on 5 minutes. I had them, I tracked the game. I had the Panthers with five scoring chances in the entire game. And I think two of them actually made it on the net. The other ones were blocked or missed the net.

Now, the Leaves themselves had eight scoring chances. So it wasn't necessarily very lopside. but they certainly got the better of the run of play. And I think they accomplished exactly what you were hoping for, right? I think one of the criticisms for them this postseason amongst many has been, well, especially in the Lightning Series, which they came out on top was we can't string together that kind of quote unquote 60 minute effort,

right? Where it's like they were down, they're playing poorly, and then they turn it on and their fastball is really good. And in this game, it was about as a complete effort as you're going to get in terms of having a plan sticking to it and not really allowing the other team to do anything. And I think it's actually, you know, it's not necessarily the way I would love the

Leafs to play. But in this particular series with their backs up against the wall, the Panthers are a team that I think is prone to getting frustrated and then making dumb mistakes. And so if you can get them into that type of environment, I think it might not actually be the worst thing for getting themselves back into the series. Yeah. And the other thing, I guess, that bears mentioning with how can. conservative the Leafs played and how little they gave up is they were doing it in front of a third string goal where they were they necessarily probably felt like we got to tighten this up because any mistake we make is you know much like it's happened in most of the series in the first place one bad turnover it's in the back of the net one one picked off pass or whatever and cardover hague's off on a break with that kind of thing so

Like I'm not saying it's a bad strategy, obviously. It just makes for like unappealing hockey. Yeah. No, I agree with that. I think our friend of podcast, Jack Hahn, had an interesting point in his substack about how the Leafs tactically to reflect what we're saying here in terms of what we saw. Intuitively, they sort of changed their offensive zone approach to at the start of the series. They were kind of running three forwards really low below the goal line, right?

Kind of trying to like cycle it and work behind the net. And in this game, they had that F3, like, playing super high in the zone and basically being alongside their two defensemen. And so, actually, that's how they scored the second goal, right? Mitch Marner kind of scored from a point shot circling around there. And it creates some interesting opportunities to shoot from high in the zone. But also, more importantly for them, the Panthers are going to have a much more difficult time catching them on those, like, stretch passes and trying to break out and transition when they do get the puck because the leaves are going to have an extra guy back. right. So that's, I think, going to work well for them defensively. It's going to sap the entertainment value a little bit. But when you're down with 3-0 in a series, you sort of just have to try to

squeeze out as many doubles as you can, regardless of what it looks like, right? So I don't fault them for that at all. I thought it was interesting, though. One thing I wanted to see was, especially with Matthew Nyes out the past couple games, and it seems like he might be cleared to come back for game five. We'll see on that. But it really sort of highlighted how weak the left side of their wing depth chart it is, right? It's like, all right, our top six is going to be Callie Yarncroke and Alexander Kerfoot in this game. Right. And that's obviously not good enough. And in this game, we finally saw Sheldon Keith just say kind of like, screw it. Let's just put together our best guys. And on that Marner goal, it was, I believe, him, Matthews, and O'Reilly was out there as the

forward line. We saw Willie Neelander playing with those two guys quite a bit. And so they really sort of, I guess, is a last ditch effort facing elimination, finally just loaded up. their top line. I'm curious to see if they keep doing that going back to Toronto and game 5 with last change. Yeah, it works for Edmonton, right? They just, oh, we're down two goals in the third period while we're double shifting Matthews and Dreisdell together. And we're going to make up that deficit more, you know, just as often as not, which is more than you can say for most teams facing a two goal deficit. So it would make sense that the Leafs would, again, like kind of out of desperation, just go, what if we put together like three insanely talented players?

Yeah. Generally, generally a good strategy. Okay, well, let's segue then to Oilers Nights, which was, you know, it is a, it was lopsided, right? Because Edmonton clearly dominated pretty much from the jump. But going from the game we watched in Florida to this one, and really for the entirety of the two series, it's almost like they're playing a different sport, right? There's been so little space, even when there have been goals in, in Panthers' leaves,

where, like, it's been the series of forechecking, right? And the series of, like, taking advantage of defensive zone mistakes. And in Vegas, Edmonton, it's been just sort of complete open ice for both teams to really do whatever they want. Now, Edmonton had a really strong defensive effort in game four, but for the most part, there's still plenty of space to skate into and obviously makes for, I think, a more, like, aesthetically pleasing. entertainment product for us to watch. So it was a nice little nightcap after the first game. Yeah, it's funny.

I was looking at the stats forward this morning. And I think it was at the end of the first period, Edmonton had more expected goals than Vegas had in the entire game. Yeah. Now, part of that's they had power plays and stuff like that. But like, no, but they dominated at 515 too, right? Completely. And that's been the problem for Edmonton is like, yeah,

they can score on the power play. But five on five, it's been pretty hit or miss, basically this whole playoff, not just in this round against Vegas. And so for them to kind of just go, yeah, we're not, you know, it helps to have last change and all that. But for them to just kind of decide we're not going to give anything up tonight, like, that's what you're looking for. Because the question is not like, can Edmonton score four goals? The question is, can Edmonton stop the other team from scoring four goals with, you know, all the improvements they made in the in the uh around the trade deadline and so you would expect them to be able to do that but they haven't really in these playoffs and so if if this is the start

of something like just clear a path straight to the cup final form it feels like the the way that this one went against a team that had pretty clearly dominated them in the first or two of the first three games in the series well that's the thing it's been kind of yo-yoing right where yeah the two games that Vegas is one in the series game one in game three, they combined for 34, five-on-five rush shots in games two and four, which there's the ones they lost in Edmonton won. They had 13 combined. And that kind of goes to what we're seeing where I was pretty surprised at the start of the series. Like Vegas is a good transition team. They attack off the rush, right? They have players to do so. But Edmonton had gotten

so much better defensively as the season went along and into the round one that I was just kind of blown away by how easy it was for Vegas to get these three on twos and two on ones out of nowhere. And it was similar with the case in game three when they won, but then you watch games two and four, it's like Edmonton clearly has it in them to put together that type of defensive effort. I don't, I don't think that's, it's not in their range of outcomes. It's just a matter of, I guess, straining together enough of them. But it's fascinating that I was looking at the Stanley Cup odds right now. And so this series is tied to too, right?

so it's kind of like a best of three. Vegas has two games theoretically at home. They still have home ice. And Edmonton's a pretty, pretty significant favorite, not only to win the series, but also they're like just behind Carolina in terms of Stanley Cup odds,

which I guess speaks to sort of the potential of this Oilers team, right? And like how it feels like they do have the highest ceiling in terms of like when you watch them in a game four, it's not just the power play that scores. It's they can have these. dominant five-on-five games and it feels like if they can put those together in a in a sequence here they probably should be the standing up favorites yeah this is one of those things where it feels like

you give me two good efforts at five-on-five in a series you know like like they did last night good is underselling how well they did last night but you know what i mean yes and um and you go and we'll worry and you know we figure the power play a little get us across the line and two other games, you know. You, they don't, they have the talent where they don't need to be just smother. They don't need to be the Los Angeles Kings of the early 2010s, right? They, they can go out there and they can, they can have a bad night or two, you know, at five on five and feel like, okay, if we get three power plays, we're going to get two goals.

So who cares? And yeah, go ahead. No, I was going to say, like, their margin for air is, is, is, so high. That's, I guess that's a more succinct way to say the thing I would say. Vegas has to play a perfect game, which they did, you know, they certainly did in game three. In game one, Edmonton, which I settled scored as four goals.

That's going to happen. But like, they dictated that game and played it the way they want to. But it can go off the rails for them so quickly in these games because Edmonton has so much firepower and also can make you pay every single time you take a penalty against them that it can get ugly real quick. And I think that's what we've seen in the two. blowouts that Edmonton's won. Yeah. By the way, this is a stat that I realized last week.

Teams that have given up four goals to one guy in a game this postseason, 2-0. This is a perfect strategy. There we go. It's the ultimate, just let them tire themselves out, right? That's exactly right. Just go ahead and everything else will work out. They feel like Leon's got this. No, we got this. It's a team game, Ryan. I'm not sure if you heard that. I heard that mention. Yeah. No, well, in this game, they also did finally,

they split up McDavid and Troy Settle at 515, right? And that worked well for them. I believe McDavid's line with Hyman and R&H, like shots were 8-0-0 or something and 5-1-5 with them on the ice, which is a good strategy as well. So, but yeah, it's nice to have that fallback option, right? If the offense drives up or if you kind of need to just go for broke, I am sure we're going to see those two guys back together at some point. Any other kind of notes or takeaways on that series,

or do you want to move on to a different topic? We can move on. Yeah, that's a problem. Do you want to talk a little bit about, like, we have a bunch of listener questions and we're going to get into those, but on my like notes here of stuff that I thought would be interesting

for us to get into today was these two games, which is done. And then I have the Philadelphia Flyers. Oh, yeah, sure. Well, it's a new era. It's true. I can barely recognize them. Yeah.

This is how you know it's a new era. Remember that guy on the Flyers in like the 90s? He's back. that's how you know it's new. It's the guy from before. I mean, I actually, I mean, we have no idea how Danny Breyer and Keith Jones are going to do as the GM and president of hockey operations respectively, right? And it seems like Keith Jones is fine as a broadcaster. I didn't mind him at all.

Seems to be very well liked and respected. And he's also like a popular guy or like at least a familiar face. And so for a president of hockey operations, I actually think it's a little bit overblown because I don't think Keith Jones is going to be wheeling and dealing. You know what I mean? Like I don't think you're contacting other GMs and other presidents and putting together these kind of eluded trades

and being at the rink scouting with the third round pick is going to be. Like I think it's going to be a lot of sort of front facing media stuff. And as a broadcaster, he will do just fine. He's used to talking publicly in front of big audiences, right? So I think that'll be okay. Breyer obviously is kind of as a first time NHL GM certainly right he worked with their ECHL team was it was kind of a different

animal here and I guess it'll depend on sort of who they hire and who they listen to and who they surround themselves with and the rest of their staff but the issue for me the kind of why I was I was poking fun and it was this is such like a I mean it's it's not unique to the flyers but it's such a flyers thing because all you've heard for years was the biggest issue wasn't necessarily the GF it was the fact that like their alumni is so meddlesome right and so involved and and they just like there's so

many cooks in the kitchen and it's so difficult for them to actually just make rational decisions and that's how they've gotten to this point with their franchise and now they're just bringing in a bunch of other guys who used to play for the team and so I just they put out that memo of like you know we're going it's a fresh start we're going to fully rebuild like this is going to take time and all of that is good but I'm very skeptical, especially with John Torado as still as their coach, that that's actually going to happen. Yeah, it's really, it's really tough, right? Because you want to give guys the benefit of the doubt,

and especially a guy like Danny Breyer, where like smart hockey people are saying to you, this guy gets it, you know? But then, like, you watch a Flyers game, and Keith Jones is like, this Rastmas Risteligning guy. Boy, oh boy, what a talent. You know what I mean? And it's like, maybe he's not making all these big hockey decisions or whatever.

Maybe he will really leave it up to Danny Breyer to do whatever he wants. But I think the release even said, like, we're still the Flyers. We still want to be out there winning, competing, and all this kind of stuff. And if you're saying we're still, like, we're still the Flyers we want to win. And John Torterella is your coach. Keith Jones is your president of hockey operations? Is it not just, we're still the flyers, the team that really wants to go out and get your,

your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, sealers or whatever, you know? Yeah, well, I was thinking about this, are they, if you were putting together a ranking one through 32 of like, most desirable jobs to take over purely like not, not, not taking into account like market and all that, just purely like the assets that are already in place from,

roster players to contracts to prospects to draft capital are they 32 i guess you could say like the coyotes would be below them just because well at least the coyotes have Logan coolly right well no they have they have significantly higher upside from like young people already in the system in terms of prospects and draft capital coming moving forward but it would like have to require at least like some sort of acknowledgement that you'd be able to spend a certain amount of money right because that would obviously I handcuff you quite a bit in terms of team building. But I mean, it's pretty wild. It's wild how bad they were last year of the Flyers.

And the fact that they still wound up with just the seventh overall pick, which is going to be a good prospect in this class, no doubt. But it's like they were never really in serious consideration for that top three, which is kind of in a tier of its own. And that's just remarkable to me. It's about the worst outcome you can have for a year to be as boring and bad as they were. without actually getting a truly elite prospect. Great plug, by the way.

It's one of those things where they feel like they are very much. This is the team I always analogize teams where the flyers are to is like the early 2000s, like three, and even a little bit post, but like definitely pre-cup run Calgary Flames, like 0304 Calgary Flames, like the, 98, 99, 2000, 2001 Calgary Flames where it's like, they stick. No question about it. They will never pick lower than like sixth in the draft or better than sixth than the draft.

And they're always going to pretend, look, we're right there. We're just like two guys away. And if we just sign these two veterans who are going to be, hey, look, a little overpaid, but you pay for quality. We're going to be right in playoff contention, you know. So it's kind of the Canucks of the last few years too, but as you kind of alluded to, at least the Canucks have like Hughes and Pedersen and Demko and all this, like reasons to get excited. I just don't have any of that.

Well, and it kind of reminds me of when the Canucks brought in the package of Jim Benning and Trevor Lyndon, right? Sure. And it was sort of similar in the sense. I'm not comparing Danny Brewer clearly to Jim Benning. My thoughts on Jim Benning as a GM or well documented at this point, although people were cautiously optimistic, I guess, at the start of that tenure because he was coming from this like Stanley Cup winning pedigree.

But it was like the whole Trevor Lyndon point was, well, he's a familiar face that people like and he can handle a lot of the media requirements of the job without necessarily being involved. And then that relationship quickly went south. I'm really, I'm fascinated. Like, I will definitely be watching from afar to see how this unfolds, I guess. It's been so bleak the past couple years that if they truly do have free reign to actually tear it down and go scorched earth and just get rid of everyone and try as hard as they can to get Max Elabrini in the next year's draft and really go all out as a tanking team, then I think it's perfectly fine. But if they try to just kind of repackage it and come back with more of the same as you're saying and be stuck in this absolute worst spot in the NHL, then I don't think this is going to be a very,

long lasting tenure. Yeah, it's, it's always one of those things where you would think that Breyer would have had adequate time to communicate his vision. And if I'm remembering right, I believe I heard like even,

like I had heard even John Tortorella was kind of like, yeah, we kind of need to like really rebuild though. With the roster we have is just not going to cut it. And like if John Tortorella, the king of like, you got to be competitive every night and all this.

If he's saying that, like that's how dire the situation is. but again it's the flyers and like some guy who played for them in 2001 is probably like now we've got to be out there hitting people and trying to win three to two every night and all they okay good luck you know i'm really interested just to see what kind of runway they're given but i you know it feels like the draft might be the first time we uh we we really start to see the shape of what their vision is because they have some contracts they could offload you know they do yeah i guess i guess that's a good way to frame it where like i think it's fine to

to give them a chance but also just because of the history or the baggage involved it's like it's tough to tough to like it kind of it does jade you a little bit in terms of this right so um yeah i will be uh i'll be interested to see all right our let's um let's take our break here a bit earlier than usual because i want to save there's the second half of the show for all the the mailback questions that we got and we can kind of just do that there. So we'll take our break here and then we'll do the mailback questions on the second half. You're listening to the Hockey P.D.O. cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. The most opinionated Maple Leaf Show out there. Real Kipprinborn. Be sure to subscribe

and download the show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back here in the Hockey PEO cast with Ryan Lambert. R.L. Let's get to the listener questions. It's time. So Kevin asks, who is the cons my favorite from each of the eight remaining teams. So let's go on, let's go in order here. I'll list the teams and we'll go like by a series and then we can talk it out. So the Carolina Hurricanes who are up three nothing in their series at the time of recording.

Sorry, I should say, three one. It's tough because like all the guys who were succeeding for them in the first round are kind of a little more quiet in the second round. And then like obviously Jordan Martinuk is going crazy for them right now. I think I land on Sebastian Ahio. He's really good. I don't know.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he carried them offensively in round one. Yeah. I have Brent Burns just because I feel like, you know, he's playing the most. Big minutes. His 515 underlying metrics are all just off the charts. I think they're up like 11 or three or something, whether I'm on the ice of 515.

And, you know, he's not necessarily leading the team in scoring, but the offense does kind of run through him because he's like the poster child of what they're trying to accomplish where funneling bucks up to the point and then getting it on net and working for rebounds and tips. And so it feels like I imagine if the hurricanes were to win the Stanley Cup and things went the way they have so far. I feel like Brent Burns would especially from the media be get would like the narrative there I think would and he'd get a lot of love for it. All right.

Let's go to the devils then. who are playing against the hurricanes. I assume, I think people would anticipate me to say Jack Hughes. I would actually go Nico Hesier here. I know that the scoring hasn't been there, but when things are going right for them, I know Hughes had the four-point game and they're only winning the series so far,

but like especially in round one, he was just so good against Mika Zabenejad. And in game three, which they won in this series, he was dominant. But they've just been controlling the puck, every shot, scoring chances, everything with him on the ice. And even though it hasn't been going in for him personally, I think he's been their most important player.

Yeah, it's funny. Maybe like three, four days ago, we would have just been like a Kirishman. Next question, you know, but like things change, I guess. Yeah, well, goalies, goalies, hey. Okay, the Florida Panthers. This one's pretty easy, right? Matthew Kichuk.

I was going to say Yeah, of course Matthew Kachukh I don't know What about Alex Lai? What about Alex Lai? And he had those good three games or whatever No, obviously He helped get them here, right?

Yeah. Yeah, it's bad So did Zach Dalpe You know It has. Although I think Kachuk needs to Would be helpful to finish this series

If he were to score a goal But yeah, his play making is still been Through the roof, right? He's unbelievable. Yeah, such a cool player Okay, the Toronto Maple Leafs. That is actually kind of a tough one because famously, everybody on that team stopped scoring. So is it just Mitch Marner?

Do we want to say it's Mitch Marter? Oh, absolutely not. I know he scored the game winning goal yesterday, but I think right now it would be Morgan Riley. That's interesting. I think he leads a team in five-on-five. points by at least a couple and in usage. I know Marner has the most points. I piled on a bunch of them at the start of the round one.

I don't know. I feel like Riley has been, you know, he doesn't, they give a lot of the tough minutes to Brody and McCabe, of course. So that kind of affects him a little bit here. But it really feels like when they're playing well, it's because he's just like incredibly involved. Engaged. Yeah, for sure.

Like active, right? Jumping in on the rush off those. offensive zone draws like taking the puck down the wall and setting plays up like it's he's just been really important to them i think their best player in this series by a mile has been willie nielander through these four games um but doesn't really have the the point totals to reflect it and good luck getting any sort of media to rally behind saying he's with their most important player so yeah i i guess i should just say though like i've always i've always been a riley skeptic Um, like, he was really bad this regular season, but man, he is, uh, I don't know if he was pacing

himself or what, but he's been an entirely different player this postseason. He, he sure. Yeah, he, but I just anytime, because you're going like, oh, when he, when they look really good, he looks really good. And it's, and vice versa. It's like, that's true. That's happened like four times this postseason, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just not the, I'm just not the biggest fan of his. So no, I'm always just going to be like frowning at the suggestion that he's, been their best player. No, I generally haven't. Like I was, I had the start of the postseason, I was wondering, I was like, is he even,

should he be one of their top six defenseman? Like, because it felt like he had to play with T.J. Brody specifically to get the most out of him. And I was like, well, they're not going to use that as the matchup pair. So that kind of defeats that purpose, but him and Luke Shen have been really good together. Yeah. Okay, the Edmonton Oilers. This is Dreisidal, of course, right?

It's hilarious. Like, you watch. And McDavid was so good in game four. And it's like, Trisdell just scored so many goals already at this point. It was obviously their best player through the first six games around one and then game one. But I feel like it's also kind of diverted our attention away from just how dominant McDavid has once again been. Yeah, when I was writing about this series yesterday, I was like,

I'm really impressed with how well Vegas is done to limit them after game one, you know, or at least at five on five. and I was like but then again like dry sidle could go out tonight and have like a five goal game and McDavid has seven assists and I'm just and I would just be like yeah it's going to happen to you what can I say you know yeah and and that is very much what what kind of took place last night where McDavid was like don't forget I am the best player alive right sure I do remember that now that you mention it yeah the Golden Knights this is a tricky one because it's kind of been a team effort so far. I think I just had Jack Eichol just because I think he doesn't have been

scoring or maybe Stone has the most points but it feels like Ico has been kind of running through him. I think William Carlson has been their best player so far but we know how this stuff works right and he just doesn't have the point total or the ice time necessarily to reflect that but yep the Dallas stars I know he missed a bunch of games but it feels like Joe Pabelsky might be up there. Yeah I mean Rupa Hince was so good in round one. Hints to, yeah, of course, Miro Heiskenen has been very good in this postseason. They are a team that like basically all their good players have played well. Well, except for Jason Robertson.

Well, I was just going to say with the exception of Jason Robertson, the guy who going into the playoffs, if you had said like, hey, you know, who's going to be the Kahn Smythe pick from the Dallas Stars? You would say, well, if it's not Jake Ottinger, it's obviously Nick Robinson or Jason Robinson and yeah not so much he's got one goal in this playoff I think yeah it's wild how like how far you'd have to get down the list of stars players so far it would have to be like the the radic faxa S l Tierra of stars players before you were like all right this is where I can slot Jason Robertson in based on playoff performance so far yeah but like the Donov's clearly ahead of him oh yeah do me too um yeah man what a pick up

Yeah. Domi really cooking this postseason. Well, Domi and Dodon are doing great. And then they just finally decided to like start playing Thomas Harley and called him up from the H.L. And so those were basically like their three editions post deadline. Yep. And all three are making a huge difference. They're delivering.

Yeah. Absolutely. The Seattle Cracken. Another like total team effort. This is like a team award, right? Yeah. Yeah. Is it? I think their best player has been Yanni Gord.

Yeah. which is hilarious because I think he's like his line is like third on the team's technical depth chart. But he plays at least three or not four more five on five minutes per game than anyone else on the team. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean like yeah, he had the head to head against McKinnon, not that he did well in that, but it was good enough to win the series. It just feels like it's short-handed everything.

Like he's their most important guy. Yeah. I'm trying to think if there's, if there's anybody, maybe I might say Vince Dunn. He's, you know, he's producing a little bit. He's eating big minutes. Now, you want to say I'm a Morgan Riley skeptic. I'm a, I'm a promoter of Vince Dunn. This is a guy when they got him out of St. Louis.

I was like, clear the decks, folks. This guy's going to show what he's got. And he's really done at this season. I mean, he led them in scoring this year, which is crazy. But yeah. Okay. Well, that was fun. I feel like that gave us a nice little snapshot of what's going on right now.

Okay. Stu asks, call the rule book or change the rule book? Well, I feel like the answer has to be changed the rule book. Because if you're doing call the rule book, and I said this when this all, like, there was a big controversy about this, like early in round one, if you call the rulebook you're asking for 10 power plays per team every game

you know and and games suck when that happens a hundred percent yeah they're just and it's like oh well you know there's all these extra goals or whatever yeah but they skate around for a minute and a half at a time then someone goes in the box

and then someone comes out of the box a minute two minutes later you know depending on if they score and then the process just repeats itself I I want to to many years ago they did a thing of like basically any stick contact that wasn't a stick lift in college hockey they were just going to call you call you for slashing or hooking or something like that any stick contact and i went to a game where there were like 21 power plays it was

insane it took two and a half hours like and i i if i don't if i remember right the game ended like two to one despite one team getting like 14 power plays. But it was ridiculous. You don't want this. So I guess my answer has changed the rulebook because calling the rulebook would be very difficult. But also some of the rules in the rule book are also so like vague and nebulous as well, right?

That like especially for the goalie interference stuff, no one really understands even what it is. Yeah, I mean, hockey is at its best when it's like free flowing five on five back and forth, right? And so it stinks when officials dictate the outcomes of games because of things they choose to call or not call. And so I get those frustrations and I think the officiating has been pretty bad. At the same time, though, so Alison Luken had this update today where in the first three games league-wide and round one, right? There was an average of nine power plays per game.

In round two now through four games, a series, it's down a 5.5 per game. And this is a trend that has been documented that happens pretty much every year where the first couple of games of the postseason, they call everything. There's a bunch of power play goals. Everyone freaks out. Everyone's like, see, the officials are finally calling the rulebook. And then once the stakes increase, once the games continue into the second and third round, all of a sudden they put the whistles away, they let a lot more.

more go and it kind of devolves into the product that we associate with playoff hockey, right? Which is like you either need to commit a murder or shoot the puck over the glass. Otherwise, it's not going to be called. And so I don't think that's necessarily great either. I wish there was some sort of a middle ground, but then you get into the point where you're like picking and choosing what calls you make or don't.

And I guess it's tough. I don't think there's necessarily any right answer, but I don't think the way it's being run right now is necessarily right either. No, totally, yeah. Was it bunting last night that was like, how do you not call that? I'm bleeding. Yeah. And they were like, get to the bench, brother.

We don't want to hear it. Yeah. Like if you don't get to the bench in five seconds, you're going to get an unsports and more like connoit's like what? Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, the standards are so hit or miss as well, right? You get some of these games where it's like everything gets called, especially if it's like a stick to the hands or anywhere.

in that area and then other games, there's just like clear obstruction happening. And it must be very frustrating to play in those games because you don't know what's going to happen at any time. Okay. Alex asks, are you surprised regarding playoff goal scoring slash blowouts? Does it have to do with almost all the top number one goalies being eliminated in round one or are teams just creating more expected goals than normal? I guess also this is just like referencing the fact that it seems like every single game right now

is five to one at some point and it's just teams trading. or alternating blowouts back and forth. Yeah. No, I, we had this, we had a similar question on puck soup. And I said basically the goalie thing, right? Like you look at it and you go, how many goalies if you were picking from the, whatever, 16 goalies remaining? I know it's technically probably more than that because a number of teams are down to their

third string goalies already. Like, how many would you be like, I'm confident picking that guy to be in a series for my team right now. Is it Jake Ottinger and that's about it? Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. There are eight teams left and there's one goalie where you're like, yeah, I'd feel pretty good about that.

And he's been bad in the second round. Really weird. Yeah, I think that's part of it. You know, speaking of that series and Dallas in particular, Pete DeBore was asked after game three about like whether you'd refer to lose the way they did in game three, which was like whatever seven to or the final score was or a close one. And he said losing in like that type of blowout fashion now maybe it's just because that's

how they did lose. And so it's kind of like doing a positive spin on it. But I do wonder whether playoffs are so much about sort of motivation, right? And that is dictated by in game in terms of what the score is. And then in series, in terms of what whoever's up or whatever, right? Like it makes sense the team that's trailing is going to be we're coming off of a bad loss, will enter a game more motivated, even though all these guys clearly want to win and all that good stuff. And so it makes sense if you get blown out one night that you would come back the next night

and either have made some sort of tactical adjustments along the way or just are more motivated to sort of make up for what just happened, right? And so it feels like that's kind of what's happened. here as well and that's probably the most realistic explanation or it just could be completely random and it just this is like some sort of a weird two-week time capsule where we're going to look back on it and be like hey that was weird when every single game was five to one yeah i i always say speaking of the devour thing like i bet and i i should talk to more coaches about this but i would guess that like what's your what's your favorite score to win by is probably like six four or

something like that because it gives you enough like positive like oh you guys scored six goals you had a nice game for yourself but you gave up for and I'm pissed you know yeah the video session the next day is going to be a very productive one yeah so I would guess that that is kind of why he leaned that way like look there were positives in this game but like I get to yell at you over the negatives and I just I just feel like that's you know if you were a coach and you had to if you had to put it out there like that, you would prefer to do that more than win three, two, or two to one or whatever. Yeah, I agree with that. Okay, Jim asks, are we getting to the point where NHL playoffs are a completely different

sport from the regular season as we already, as already the case in the NBA? I don't think so. They still got the sticks and the skates and, you know, there's the ice out there, you know. So it's pretty similar in a lot of ways. But we were kind of alluding to it earlier. it's called is just so completely different from, no, I don't know if you've been paying attention to the NBA playoffs at all, but one of the things that's happening a lot in this Lakers Warriors series

is that the Lakers will get like 27 free throws and the Warriors will end the game with like eight. And it's like, well, I mean, that feels like it shouldn't be. But in the NHL, it's a thing of, it's very rarely that lopsided. And usually it's four to three, five to four, whatever for power plays. And yeah, I just think it turns into more, especially once, like Dimitri said, like once you get to round two here, it's more of prison rules. You can just do whatever you want, especially after a whistle or whatever.

Yeah, I do wonder, like, you know, the game environment in terms of like the defensive structures. and also the matchups of like going up against the same teams night in and night out, you would think that different player types might be more valuable than others. I think that's sort of like it feels like in basketball, that's the case, right, where there's guys who can like put up big, big counting stats in the regular season, but like aren't necessarily. And then part of that gets attributed to being clutch or whatever. I don't think that's what we're talking about here.

I do think from like a skill set perspective, right? it makes sense that once the game slows down a little bit or it becomes more difficult to get to the inside of the ice and the offensive zone, that not necessarily like bigger players would be more valuable, but guys with problem solving skills to get in there. We talk so much about how like, look at this Panthers team. They're having so much success by just having all these like high motor guys who are just like feasting on the forecheck and gave Boston in particular, just nightmares throughout that series, right?

And that's something that, like the hurricanes do that. there are other regular seasons. It's not necessarily unique to the playoffs. But I do what, like, certain player types certainly might be more valuable come to postseason than others beyond just sort of clutch or quote unquote big game player or anything like that. I think there is some something structurally different, I guess. I think the importance of coaching really comes up in the playoffs.

Not like line up decisions necessarily, but like in series adjustments. Like you say, you play a team six, seven times in a row. You're going to know each other really. well. And so you have to, especially because you played each other two, three, four times in a regular season, you're going to have to throw out different looks a lot of the time and find something that works and maybe even intentionally sometimes kind of be like, okay, we're going to give you like a fake look at what we're trying to do. And then, you know, shift back to what your real

strategy is just because you don't want them to be like what happened with the rain. is the last couple of playoffs where it's like, well, we know what these guys are doing, you know? I did have a, I had an executive describe a player who's in the league as a Tuesday night player. And that being that like on a Tuesday night in the regular season against the 27th ranked team, this guy is going to absolutely feast. He's going to cook, yeah. But maybe when on the bright lights, when things are a bit different in other teams game planning for them, his skill set might be a bit less valuable. So I'm sure there's something to that. Okay.

One final one here. Reed asks, if Nurse and Petrangelo both get suspended, does one team benefit more an hour at the time of this conversation? It's been announced that Petrangelo is having a hearing, right? Nurse is up for suspension because he got the instigator in the final five minutes. And so we'll see if that's going to be upheld. but yeah, I'm kind of curious for your take on this because both guys are obviously eating massive minutes for their respective team.

So let's assume they're both in this one game, although I imagine if nurses does get upheld, Petrangelo's could be a two-game suspension just because it feels like his violation was a bit more egregious. A little bit, huh? Yeah. I mean, listen, whenever you just swing from that direction with two hands that aggressively,

I mean, he's lucky. The puck was a mile away. lucky that I didn't catch Leon in the head or in the face or something, right? Like that could have been very bad. So, and he was frustrated, not just about, like, he was frustrated because he got shoved into the boards previously. And there's been a lot of physical contact in this series so far. That was just like inexcusable, right?

Especially for an important veteran player at the end of a blowout loss. It's like, dude, it's 2.2 and you're heading home, you still are in a fine position to put yourself and your team at risk of this is just unacceptable. It's, it was, I could not believe that like, like, seeing it live,

it was like, oh, that was bad. And then seeing it on the replay, it's like the way he reared back with that stick, it like touched the ice behind him. You know, like a real John Henry style swing.

Um, but my, my answer to this question is, uh, Alex Petrangelo. You want to talk about me being a, uh, Morgan Riley skeptic.

I think Darnell-L-Nor's borderline is awful. So I, you know, obviously he's playing a good chunk of his minutes, like a wave from McDavid-Dreisdil at five-on-five. And that's, you see. Yeah. So, like, that doesn't help, but also, like, you know, Petrangelo is putting up better numbers, basically, across the board. And I just have a lot more time for him in general.

So like, I guess I subscribe, was it, was it Jordan Greenway who earlier this season yelled at darnel nervous? You get $9 million and you don't do anything. Like I subscribe to the Jordan Greenway School of Thought on this one. Yeah, I think Nurse is fine. Unfortunately, he just passed to play such a, I mean, doesn't have to, but he plays such a big role because he's paid so much. And so I think that kind of distorts. Classic situation. Right. I think if he was a $4 million player playing on the second pair, I would have a totally different opinion.

Everyone would be like, you know what? This guy's totally fine. I have no darn Elner's takes. But unfortunately, he's just overexposed, right? And that's kind of it happens. Yeah, I'm with you. I think Petrangelo's a better player. He's been getting a heavy McDavid minutes in this series. And they do have guys on that side of the blue line to bump up. Like, I'm sure. Shay Theodore is going to play a lot of minutes in whatever games. Petrangelo misses, but we saw, it was there suspended last year in one of the round one games against the Kings. And I think he missed one. And then- I feel like that's right. Kulak got bumped up to the top pair essentially with

Cici at the time. And Cici was playing much better than he is now, but they didn't have Matias Eckholm, obviously. And that pair was totally fine. And Kulak's been awesome again in this postseason. And so I feel like for one game, it's not the end of the world, right? Just give Bouchard at Cone pair significant minutes,

have Kulak and CC on the second pair, make it work with the third pair, and it's fine. I do think it's a bigger loss here for Vegas, even though they do have better personnel on the blue one. Yeah, just the point of fact here, Darnell Nurse was suspended one game for headbutting Phil Dono. Do you remember this now? I do, yeah.

Yeah, that was a crazy headbutt too. I do. It was. Okay, well, that was a fun set of mailback questions. We got a bunch of stuff about the aves and the Bruins and what they should do this offseason. We can just, I'll save them in a little folder here on my laptop. And then next time we do like an offseason mailbag or something, we'll revisit that. Sounds good.

R.L, let the listeners know where they can check you out what you've been working on. E.P.Ringside.com. I've been working on all the stuff I usually write. I guess I am gearing up. So when teams get eliminated from the playoffs, I write a story about like, you know, what do I think they're going to do this this summer, basically? Where do they go from here?

So, you know, last night I went into that Toronto game, really saying to myself, it looks like I'm going to have to write tonight. And it might happen with New Jersey tonight instead. So keep an eye out for that kind of stuff. And then just, you know, broadly all the takes that I would, normally right. You can check them out.

EP Rankside. I love it. You're basically on call at this point. Just waiting. It's true. That's true. No, E.P. ringside's great.

I'm going to have, that's true. I'm going to have round two kind of how these teams won their matchups, whenever round two finishes. And then we've got, I mean, our draft rankings are dropping soon, I imagine.

Oh, yeah. And that's the go-to. I mean, wow. That content is just unreal, and that's going to guide us all the way through the summer. So if you're not, subscribe to the EP ringside. This is a good time to do so.

Yeah, we'll be back with more of the Hockey PDOCast. Thank you for listening here to us on the Sportsnet Radio Network.