The Hockey PDOcast - Golden Knights Defensive System, Eichel's Impact, and a "Normal" Season in Vegas

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Jesse Granger to talk about what's been a shockingly "normal" season in Vegas, the defensive playing style Bruce Cassidy has them executing, Jack Eichel's campaign being deserving of both Hart and Selke votes, potential matchups for them in Round 1, and what could be in store this summer after a quiet trade deadline. 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 Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEOCast. My name is Demetri Filipovich and joining me to close out the week as my good buddy Jesse Granger. Jesse, what's coming? Not much. How are you? I'm good. I'm excited. I think this is the first time I've had you on this year. It's been a while since we chatted, a lot to catch up on about the Golden Knights. I'm particularly interested in talking about this over the past couple weeks. I don't know if you agree, but especially compared to their historical track record of all the drama with LTIR usage, a couple of years trying to scrape into the playoffs at the end, big trades of the deadline. This year has been, for a lack of a better term, shockingly normal by Golden Knights standards,

right? Like they're just kind of humming along. We've spent so much time focusing on the other components of the West, whether it's the top three teams in the central battling it out, an Oilers Kings match up again, the Oilers struggles and injuries, the blues heater, the wildcard race in the West. Everyone's kind of duking it out for our attention and has a lot of stuff to play for. And this Golden Knights team still does. Their lead in the Pacific at first place isn't necessarily locked up.

The three points up on L.A. 5 points up on Edmonton. But they've been kind of just chilling, hanging out, watching everyone else battled out. And it's been relatively drama-free, which I imagine for you on the one hand, all the drama is good for someone covering them day-to-day. because it's great content fodder and it gives you stuff to write about. But also I think it's probably a nice little reprieve in terms of like mostly just focusing on the hockey and getting to enjoy it as opposed to all the other stuff. Yeah, they have been, it's been a very under the radar season for their standards.

It's, I always, I've been saying for eight years now, never a dull day in Vegas. And I don't know if we had any dull days this season, but definitely less chaotic days than in the past, especially at the deadline. And that's obviously driven by the circumstances. is I don't think the Golden Knights all of a sudden decided they don't want to make splashy trades or improve the team dramatically at the deadline the way they have. I think they just kind of ran out of assets. They don't have a first round pick for the next two years. They've traded a lot.

I mean, they even did trade a first round prospect in Brennan, uh, to get Radley Smith. So even for like, even in a, even in a very quiet, nonchalant trade deadline, they still did trade a first round pick in Brennan. So yeah, it's been and it's a good team. know how good they are. I'll be honest with you. This team is very confusing to me. And they have been all year. But they do a lot of things really well. And they're going to be a tough out for sure. I wanted to, I think they're pretty good. And especially if you look at the underlying profile and some of the stuff I'm privy to with the sport logic metrics, which I think do a better job of painting the picture defensively. The job Bruce Cassidy's done this season with

this group and kind of getting them back to that defensive environment that they really rode all the way to the 2023 Stanley Cup he's not going to get a lot of attention or love or probably be on any ballots for the Jack Adams because that award's generally reserved for the coach who kind of brought their team

from out of nowhere, right, exceeded expectations the most. Whether it's Dean Evanson or obviously Spencer Carberry or Jim Montgomery what he's doing in St. Louis whereas Bruce Cassidy's been there for a couple years, there's high expectations for this Golden Knights team. It's all well established yet you look and

they're seventh and expected in goals against it's not anything necessarily too elite but similar to the trend they've had in the past they're 12th in shot attempts allowed the 13th in time spent in their own zone yet you whittle it down they're down a sixth in few of shots on goal second and few a slot shots allowed and then first in inner slot shots allowed and expected goals against leading the league in both and this is the sort of the hallmark of Bruce cassidy and his system and the way he wants this goldenites team to play And so from an execution perspective, despite the fact that William Carlson missed significant time, Shea Theodore was out after the Four Nations. They've kind of been humming along with this and looking ahead to the playoffs.

I think that's partly why I'm pretty optimistic about their outlook because it's something that it's kind of tried and true, right? Like they've showed us that they can play this way, the results it can yield. It won't necessarily guarantee playoff success. But if they keep doing this, it's a pretty good formula to follow for extended playoff success. Yeah, I totally agree. And this recent stretch of good play, and obviously they lost the last two games, two big ones to Edmonton and Winnipeg. But prior to that, they had won quite a few in a row.

And I think that this gave me more optimism for their postseason chances than the previous, whatever, 60 games had given me. And the reason is the Golden Knights have been good all year. Don't get me wrong. They have not been a bad team. They had a tough kind of December, January. But even then, they were still playing 500. And if you can, if your slumps are 500 hockey, you're in good shape. But to me, even when they were winning, especially earlier in the year, they were just

outscoring their problems. They like the defense wasn't as good as it had been in years past. It was looking very not nearly as buttoned up as it had always been. And you wonder like, okay, the blue line is aging. Some of these defensive minded forwards that are like, yes, the Golden Knights blue line is one of the best in the league. and it's a big reason why they're good. But I think that combined with the Mark Stones, the William Carlson's,

now Jack Eichol, to me, is not talked about as one of the premier defensive forwards in the NHL. Those guys, in combination with this big, tough, strong blue line is why they're so good defensively. And they're all getting a little bit older. So at the beginning of the year, I was kind of wondering, are they still that good of a defensive team? Can they be? They were outscoring their problems, but they weren't outscoring their problems by just

dominating the scoring. chances in creating a ton. No, they were just shooting like 25% at home for months. And it was wild. And it's like, well, this, this can't continue. How good can this team actually be when, when every shot they take doesn't go in. And this down the stretch, they have, they have flipped the switch. They've started playing this zone defense that Bruce Cassidy installed the moment he got here. It's been brilliant from the day he got here. I think the Golden Knights personnel, I mentioned how big and strong they are. They're also very long. And that just, they have long sticks. They have wide reaches and it makes it really, really tough to pass the puck through them when they

crowd the middle of the ice. There's just no room for anything. And all those numbers by sport logic, the inner slot shots, that matches the eye test big time. It's tough to get the puck inside on this team. And they've really flipped that switch down the stretch. William Carlson coming back from injury helped big time because it just, when he gets back in there, it just makes all the rest of the center depth fit into place so much better. So yes, I am more optimistic after watching how they've turned this because I think this team can win defensively. I don't think this team's going to outscore teams in the playoffs. Like they were doing it early in the year.

That's just not the personnel of this team. I don't think that's how they're going to win. But they can and have won a ton of games defensively. And they're starting to look like that team a lot more this last month or so. They play such a well documented. We've spoken about a bunch in the past, such a unique style defensively in terms of their extreme discipline and sort of packing the paint and crowding around the goalie.

trying to block shots and allowing you to kind of spend time in the peripheries of the offensive zone. As I said, they're kind of middle of the pack in terms of offensive zone time allowed, yet it doesn't translate to quality against. And, you know, that passive defensive structure, the pros and cons of it and kind of how they operate is really fascinating to me. Last Sunday, Trance and I were talking about Winnipeg, the team they played on Thursday, and how they were kind of struggling in their matchup against the Kinek.

because the Canucks play much more of a show defensive environment of pressuring everything and sort of trying to jump out and contest. And Winnipeg is such a team concept offensively, right? Like they have game breakers and Eilers and Conner and Perfetti emerging. But for the most part, the reason why they're so successful is all these kind of like short, quick hitting passes and everyone jelling so well. And watching that game on Thursday, you could see that this was. the type of matchup that they could probably excel at offensively because all of a sudden Vegas is very willing to allow them to kind of get into their sets and sort of set up a lot of these methodical sequences they like. And so especially early on the third period,

you can kind of throw it out because they're sitting on a three nothing lead and nursing that and trying to get it across the finish line. But for the first period and a half or so, Winnipeg was kind of getting a lot of what they wanted in an ideal world, right? And so that was interesting because we probably wouldn't, I mean, we wouldn't see that matchup certainly until a potential Western Conference final if both those teams made it that far. So maybe it's something to kind of earmark and revisit if that matchup happens. Probably is a much better defensive matchup for Vegas going through the Pacific against both Edmonton and L.A. because of their respective playing styles.

But I thought that was interesting in terms of sort of the intricacies of kind of what could give them potential problems and teams that could break through that defensive shell versus ones where if you're just have puck dominant guys who are trying to go one on one, you're going to have tough time because all of a sudden you're going to have. have like five guys that you have to break through on your way towards a net. And that won't necessarily really work in a playoff matchup. Right, right. The layers are the key.

Like you beat one guy on the Golden Knights defense, especially when all 10 players are in the defense are in that zone. Like if you beat one guy, well, there's another guy right there. Before you've even finished that move, there's already another stick on you. And it's interesting with Winnipeg because I totally agree with everything you said about

the matchup kind of favors Winnipeg's offense a little more. And it looked that way last night. And last night, or sorry, Thursday night is the most I've seen a Golden Knights team get pushed around in a very, very long time. Like the Jets were the bigger, more physical, stronger team. And that does not happen very often to the Golden Knights. Now, it's, we're kind of in the dog days here. Yes, they're still fighting for that division lead. But I don't necessarily expect that to be the case if they were to meet in the conference final.

But the other interesting part is like as well as the matchup is like the Golden Knights had won eight in a row against the Jets prior to their loss. And part of that, I think, is goaltending. Hellebuck just hasn't played very well against the Golden Knights for whatever reason. I was putting the stats together before the game. And Aiden Hill was 6 and 0 in his career against the Jets with a sub-900 save percentage. It was like 896 and he's 6 and 0. So clearly they're not defeating the Jets by not allowing any goals. It's just more so they were outscoring them.

So that is a, it's a fascinating matchup. We obviously have two rounds before you'd have to worry about that. But yeah, the Jets looked phenomenal on Thursday. Yeah, certainly within time and space, it feels like they're a much different team offensively as opposed to when they get pressured a little bit. So I'm going to keep in mind. But you mentioned Jack Eichel and his role in this and how you view him as a premier defensive forward. And I completely agree.

And I want to make, I think there's a very compelling case that he deserves to be included at years end on hard ballots. You know, you place five votes. I certainly wouldn't expect him to break through that group of Dreisaitel and Hellebock up. top, even Kutrov and McKinnon. But I think there's a very interesting fifth place vote for him. And obviously, you know, it doesn't necessarily relatively matter, although that is still a pretty prestigious honor to be included on ballots in that manner. And he's fourth in the league in scoring.

He already became Vegas's first ever skater to reach 90 points. He needs only seven points in the final seven games to hit the 100 point mark. He quarterbacks, the first unit power play. And they're with him on the ice with a mad advantage. I think they're scoring like 14 goals an hour or something, which is preposterous territory to be in. And he's a big reason for that in terms of the attention he commands, his passing ability,

the downhill element off the left flank. With Wild Bill out for significant stretches this season, he's eaten up 40 more penalty kill minutes than any other Vegas forward this season. So he's taken on that responsibility as well. At 5-15, they're up 65 to 38 in his minutes, despite the fact that Bruce Cassidy, you know, ideally when everyone's healthy, They want to play Barbershev and still with him,

but we've seen him drop guys in here, there. He played a bunch with Victor Olives and Erle. Tanner Pearson more recently, Holtz, Callahan Burke when he got called up. We've seen his ability to pretty much whoever's on his wing to still keep producing. He does everything, essentially. I've just outlined for a top five team in the standings,

and yet for whatever reason, you don't really see him discussed in that light necessarily. I think everyone, especially after the cup run, agrees that he's a premier top-flight elite center, yet in terms of like the most valuable players in the league for whatever reason, I think Vegas is generally thought of and more of a team concept because of some of the stuff we said defensively. But he's taken such an outsized role on this team, especially this year, and it carried them for large stretches. And I think he deserves to be recognized for that.

Yeah, I totally agree with everything you said. And I also think it's partial, I think part of it is defensive. acumen in hockey, I feel like is such a reputation thing. And that's why like the Selke goes to the same guy for 10 years in a row. And now the Berserons out, we've got our new guy that's going to win it for 10 years in a row. And it's just such a like, because the defensive numbers aren't as talked about and they aren't as just visible as goals and assists, it becomes a reputation thing. And I think that Jack I think it's very hard.

to gain that reputation midway through your career. And because of how people thought of Jack Eichel in Buffalo, which was a supremely talented offensive player who might not play winning hockey, you use whatever phrase you want to use, then all of a sudden he comes to Vegas and that clearly isn't the case. And I think Bruce Cassidy has, I do think Eichael got better. It's not that he was this brilliant defensive player, but I think it was there in him in Buffalo and we just didn't see it because the team wasn't playing well. I don't think he got as good of coaching, but Bruce Cassidy's brought it out of him.

He is incredibly dominant when you watch the games. Like, it is impossible not to notice Jack Eichael. And that's one of the things I loved about Four Nations was I was curious because I watched Jack Eichael every night on the ice with the Golden Knights. And he is, he pops so much because of his, his first couple steps are so fast. Like he might not get up to the same speeds as McKinnon and McDavid, but he gets up to top speed as fast as any player in the NHL. And the way he transports the puck, once.

the puck's on his stick, it's in the offensive zone and you're set up 99% of the time. You can't take the puck off of him. And then you add in his playmaking, the fact that he is the key to both special teams units. I wanted to see, does he still pop like that on the ice at four nations with everyone on the ice is a superstar when it's USA versus Canada? And he did. He did. He was still one of the best players out there.

He has clearly elevated himself to being a top 10 player in the NHL. I think he deserves. The one thing I'll say for the heart discussion is when you compare Eichel to all the other heart guys and all the other like near 100 point guys, he's the only one who plays on the penalty kill the way he does. Like these other guys, if you look at their share of their team's total penalty killing minutes, it's like 1%, 2%, maybe 8% if they had to jump in every once in while. And then you look at Eichael and I haven't looked at it in a while, but I think it's like

40 something percent of the Golden Knights penalty killing minutes. he's out there. He does everything for this team. He takes the toughest matchups. Cassidy tries to put him against the number one line as much as possible, whether they're at home or on the road. He has been so good. This is the best hockey Jack Eichols ever played. And I think he absolutely deserves to be in that heart discussion. And he is the engine that makes this Golden Knights team run. When he first came over from Buffalo, a lot of the talk was, well, it'll be good for him to not have to be the guy. He can just be one of the guys. And it'll be a great team. around him. And that was the case and it did help him. But he's, I think he's taking his game to even

another step that now even being on a great team, he's the guy again. Like, this is Jack Eichol's team. As good as everyone else is around him, this is, he is absolutely the engine of the Golden Knights. And he's been brilliant this year. Yeah, both the hard and the soggy conversation. I think the, and part of being good defensively is just ultimately effort and energy expenditure. And I think for a lot of the top offensive players who are tasked with the burden of creating everything for their teams with the puck. It's difficult to ask that or expect that. I think maybe what works in his favor is unlike a McKinnon or McDavid who, you know, they accelerate so much and there's so much power in their skating.

Eichael has that as well, but there's such like an effortless sort of seeming glide to his skating style. And so that allows him to off the puck, like the range and the disruption ability is there. But then with the puck on Spore Logic, he's second in the league in end-to-end rushes behind just McDavid. He's third in the league and controlled end. trees behind McDavid and McKinnon. He's fifth in the league with offensive zone possession time with puck on a stick behind McDavid, Dreytoll, McKinnon and Quinn Hughes, and he's sixth in the league in slot passes. So you put that all together. And then all of a sudden, it's a pretty intriguing resume in terms of how much heavy lifting this guy's doing at both ends and how

instrumental he is. So pretty much the entire operation, I think, for the Golden Knights. Yeah, he's a stud. I mean, his physical attributes, we've seen him for so long. And now it's like he just has he's finding new ways to use them like that stride we talk that i was talking about like the the ability to accelerate the way he does that's always been an offensive weapon and now it's like when he's on the penalty kill or he's in his defensive zone you look at him and it doesn't look like he can get to you like he's so far away but then before you know it he's on top of you and his stick is so strong he's lifted your stick and he's going the other way and and all the sudden the puck's in the back of your net before you even know what happened i want to ask you

about Tomash hurdle. It sounds like I know you posted a picture of him being on the ice with the team in a non-contact jersey and that's obviously a very encouraging sign, especially it seems like it's much more manageable than it was initially feared, right, where it seemed like it could be a long, long-term impact. I'm curious for your take on sort of the timeline there and what the expectations are for return because he was playing so well before he got hurt, right offensively he had 21 goals in 33 games between the new year and his injury dry sightal led the league in that time with 22 so he was right up there um we can talk more about his value in the power play beyond just the goals he's scoring in terms of how much

attention he attracts but i'm curious to see that because you know they finally got william carlson back and we've seen how valuable he is to this team we haven't really seen them at full force after the smith and sod acquisitions with all their centers is intact and just having that, you know, preferred 12-man group up front. Where are we at with hurdle and kind of what, what do you think the timeline is for his return and whether he's going to be able to, you know, step back in and I guess assume the role that he had previously. Yeah, it's definitely a great sign that he's already back on the ice the last two days

with that red, no contact jersey. I personally think if the playoffs started today, he'd be playing. I think that they're probably taking it a little slow with him just because why rush him. He was obviously he didn't miss a ton of time. It's not like he's been out for months and you need to get him a really long runway to find his game going in the playoffs. I think he'll pick back up where he left off relatively easily. So I think that they're kind of taking their time with him. They're heading on the road.

They just had a couple home games. Now they're heading on the road and they've got a back-to-back this weekend in Calgary and Vancouver. Then they head over to Colorado. then they come back home for two. My guess is Hurtle might not play on this upcoming trip. Maybe he'll play in Colorado. I don't expect him to play the back-to-back. He could.

I mean, like I said, I think he could play today if it was a playoff game. But my guess is he either plays in Colorado on that last game of that road trip, or maybe he plays when they come back to Vegas where they host Seattle and Nashville. That's two teams that aren't the biggest, meanest physical teams in the league and their kind of their seasons are over. I think that that might be a good. set of games to ease him back into things. But yeah, I think we will definitely see him before the playoffs. And I think that it's important for him to get some games in before the playoffs last

year. He traded for him at the deadline. He was coming off that knee injury. He was kind of trying to find his way with players he'd never played with in the playoffs. And he looked bad. Like hurdle, that that trade looked like it might be a disaster through the playoffs and through the first month or so of this season. It looked like, oh my gosh, like maybe Hurtle doesn't have it anymore. He's getting older. He's a big heavy player. He's had a couple knee injuries.

And then he just found it. And all of a sudden, these last few months, the second half of the season, he has looked like the Tomas Hurtle that I was so used to watching in San Jose. He's a big, powerful guy that knows how to use his rear end to keep you away from the puck. When he's got the puck, it is so hard to get around him. And if you cheat and go one side to get around him, he just spins the other way. And now all of a sudden you've opened up a defensive breakdown that he's going to take advantage of. You just kind of have to accept that he now has the puck.

And I'm going to have to wait for him to decide what he wants to do with it. He's been much better at five on five lately. For a while there, he was a bit of a power play merchant. He was scoring every night on the power play. But you didn't notice him driving a lot of offense at five on five. That has changed big time prior to the injury. He was really driving offense. And a lot of nights, I think Ikel maybe was, was wearing down a little bit.

He had played a lot of games, especially including the Four Nations. And I think that for a while there, he kind of handed the baton to Hurdle. And Hurdle was the guy driving offense every night for this team. He's, yeah, and he's just been a really solid player. And he's been the key to that power play because this Golden Knights team has sucked on the powerplay for seven years. And it didn't make any sense. When you looked at the personnel on the ice, it's like, how can this group of players not score goals with a man advantage.

I don't understand it. And you plug hurdle in there. And all of a sudden, all these guys that we've been looking at their attributes like, oh my God, Mark Stone with his passing and his vision, Eichl with his shot and his playmaking, Pavl Dorofiev's got a great shot over there. William Carlson's a sneaky player. How can they not score? Well, you put hurdle in the middle in the bumper right in front of the net.

And all of a sudden, all those attributes that we hadn't been seeing are just the light. We see Mark Stone making those passes we've been waiting for. everything clicks. And I think that, yes, he's got all the goals. I think the goal scoring is the, is the easiest least impactful part of what he does on that power play. Because most of them, if you go back and look at every power play goal hurdle scored this year, pretty much anyone in the NHL would have scored those goals. He's just slam dunking it into the net from three feet in front of the goalie, just one timing a pass for Mark Stone from under the goal line. But to me, what makes the biggest difference is his ability to to gain position in front of the net and recover loose pucks has

completely changed the power play because I think the Golden Knights were always overpassing. They wanted to, they would pass it around the zone until they had the absolute perfect backdoor one-timer where there's no way the goalie saves it. And if you're looking for that, you're going to spend a lot of power plays just passing it around and ended up with nothing, no dangerous chances, no anything. And Cassidy is screaming for them to shoot the puck more. he's been doing it since he got here. But when you shoot the puck and it goes off somebody

and the other team immediately collects it and sends it 200 feet down to your end, you don't want to shoot it next time. When Tomash Hurtle is eating up every loose puck like hungry, hungry hippos, all of a sudden it's more fun to shoot the puck. And now all of a sudden, this power play has more of a shot mentality. And I really do think their confidence in hurdles ability

to make good things happen when the puck goes to the net has really shifted the entire mindset for this. power play unit. And then obviously it's a snowball effect. You start to get confidence. Now all of a sudden, those plays that they wanted to make start opening up because teams are so afraid of hurdle in the middle of the ice. Now you can make those flashy passes that they so badly want to make. That's like in the DNA of how they are as players. They want to make those passes. Everything starts to open up. And now they go from being a team where that I can remember fans, every time they draw a penalty, the fans would tweet like, can we decline it, please? Like,

we're doing so well at five on five. This is for sure going to kill all of our momentum to. Now they're the most dangerous power play in the league and when they get a power play I almost feel like well one nothing when the other team takes a penalty it's like well now you're down a goal and I never thought that would be the case for this golden knight's team I'm glad you brought that up because obviously the 14 power play goals he scored as you mentioned are going to attract a lot of the attention and that's tied for third most in the league but I'll take it even a step further from what you said about gaining possession and I'm going to channel my my old school hockey guy here and talk about the value of faceoffs I think situationally, they certainly matter, especially on the power play, and gaining that initial

puck possession, forget the retrievals and hanging on to it and cleaning up rebounds. He's won over 60% of his draws on the power play. He's taken 179 of them. Second on the team is Jack Eichael with 44. And so just getting set up in the offensive zone right away and not having to spend the first 20 seconds of every power play, going back, retrieving it, trying to work that drop pass to gain entry. and kind of burning yourself out that way. And then before you know it's second units out there with 50 seconds left on the clock. They're able to get set up right away at least 60% of the time, essentially.

And that's a huge element of that as well. And I think something that shouldn't go overlooked. And a big part of the secret success for why they've been so lethal, there's just getting to spend more time with the puck in the offensive zone because he's starting off those possessions on a positive note. 100%. Totally agree. And I think as good as Ikel's been,

his biggest hurdle when it comes to the Selke race in particular is the faceoffs aren't great. And it makes no sense. Like he's a big, strong guy with amazing reflexes. Like everything says Jack Eichl should be awesome at faceoffs, but he isn't. He doesn't win enough of them. And Hurtle has been great for that to be able to throw them out there. And the fact that they've got three centers, like their three top centers, Ikel Carlson and Hurtle, all on the top power play unit.

So if one gets tossed, your second option is better than, most. Well, and beyond the goals, he's fifth in the league, I believe, in inner slot shots taken this year. And so that attention he kind of attracts, and especially the defensive resources, you mentioned how when he sticks his button you with the puck, like, good luck trying to try to get it from him. What I've loved and I equated it almost to like a traditional basketball set where like you throw it in to your postman down low and he attracts a lot of attention and gets the defensive suck in and then he kicks it out to open shooters. We've seen that, both on the power play and at 5-15

with the connection with him and someone like Dora Fayaev, right? And how valuable that's been for creating space for Dera Faya to do what he does best, which is shoot all the time. And it's such a weapon for him. He scored the 32 goals. People that listen to the show know how much I love the guy. I think he's hit the post 11 times

as well. Like in some of these games recently, even where he hasn't scored, he's so dangerous and threatening when he's at that right circle with time and space to shoot. And so that's been a big key for them replacing all the goals they lost when Marshall So left in free agency to Nashville. And I love that connection between the two. And I love sort of how they operate from the low post with hurdle and how they can run plays

through him. So it's not just Jack I call having to carry the buck every time. All of a sudden, it gives you another avenue once the game slows down a little bit to create good looks in the offensive zone. Yeah, for sure. Dorofiev's shot is such an important aspect to that power play. Even when he's not shooting it, just the fact that it's back there. Because Vegas, the way run their power play. They run the one three one like most teams, but they they load up on the left side of the ice. Like Jack Eichol is the left half wall and he's got the puck most of the time, which is how I would, if it was me, I want Jack Eichael to have the puck most of the time. And then you've got Mark Stone who doesn't really play in front of the net very much. He's mostly just to the side of the goal below the goal line. And that's also on the left side. So he and Ikel can kind of play pitching catch right there. And then even Theodore at the point will creep over to that left side. And then you've got hurdle right in the middle of the ice. And it feels like

everything is over there. And that's kind of, they're just passing the puck around. And your focus, it's so easy to put all of your focus on that half of the ice. And meanwhile, Pavel just kind of floats around in that right circle, just look, trying to find the right passing lane. And when they get him the puck, he fires it. There's no hesitation. This is not a young player who like, it'd be easy for a player of that experience and age to want to defer. I'm, I'm not the guy. Let me, let me, if they pass it to me, I'm giving it right back to Mark Stone or Jack Eichael. There's none of that. There's no hesitation.

He knows his shot is a weapon at the highest level. I had Aden Hill tell me he thinks he's got the trickiest read to, shot to release to read in the NHL. And that could be him pumping his teammates tires a little bit, but there's no doubt, Pavloviev's shot is an absolute weapon. And it keeps teams honest. It forces teams to not overcomit to that half of the ice where they've got all

these playmakers because if you do, you know that now your goalie is going to have to make an incredibly difficult lateral move to then face a shot that no goalie wants to face in a kind of vulnerable position where they're trying to gain depth. It's a difficult shot to face for a goalie. So there's just so many weapons on this power play and they finally all are starting to click. It's been fun to watch. The only, the interesting thing is I think it's partially because Vegas doesn't commit penalties because the way they play defense is kind of sitting back and they're not all over your body a lot. They don't commit penalties.

They're also just a smart veteran group that knows when not to reach. Because they never commit any penalties, they also don't get any penalties because the refs aren't going to give you for nothing. Right. No, even though it's the number one power play unit in the league, it's when you look at the like overall total power play numbers, it's shocking how little amount of time they've had on that power play. But when they do get on it, it's, it's been so effective.

It's not just the total numbers either. It's like the timeliness of it. It seems like every time this team needs a goal in the third period and they get a power play, it's automatic. Like they score every time in that situation this year. I love Dauphrey so much. He's like, he was put on this earth to be the living embodiment of that always sunny meme of. So anyways, I started blasting. Like there's just such a violence to his shot.

And you talk about the lack of deferral. It's gotten to the point where he's almost assumed the role now of like in some of these empty net situations late in the game or at the end of a power play or end of a period scramble mode. Like it seems like. They're going out of their way with the sole intention of setting up one of those bombs for him from the right circle. It's like, all right, passing the fuck around. We're just trying to ultimately get to the angle of him blasting it and trying to beat the goalie one-on-one. And so I love that for him and he's been awesome. And I'm going to enjoy watching that moving forward as well.

I think the sky's the limit for him. This is just the tip of the iceberg. All right, let's take our break here, Jesse. And then when we come back, we'll jump right back in there. We're going to close strong. You're listening to the Hockey Ocast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the Hockey Peelecast with Jesse Granger. Jesse, let's keep it going.

I wanted to talk a little bit about their approach at this deadline and sort of looking ahead to the offseason, at least based on reading the tea leaves and what we know now. You mentioned kind of how different this deadline was maybe than a year's blast. There wasn't necessarily a big splash. It was kind of smaller measures, right? They picked up Brandon saw it after his contract got terminated. They added Riley's. Smith brought him back. Now, both have been awesome fits for them exactly what they needed in terms

of supplementing the wings. You look at a 515. Smith still hasn't been on the ice for a 515 goal against. They're up 6-0. It is minutes. Saad, they're up 16 to 10, 60% expected goal shares. So both have been seamless fits and kind of exactly what they needed. I imagine part of it was, I'm sure they explored and entertained every option to them. And as you said, with a limited covered now with not that many assets to move. Maybe it just wasn't feasible there. They would have had to subtract money as well to make something really work. I'm curious though, it's TBD depending on how maybe the rest of the season unfolds and whether they have another long playoff run or whether they lose in round one or round two and then how that impacts their

decision making. But kind of thinking ahead to the summer and what that could look like for them and whether you think this was a bit of sort of the calm before the storm in terms of keeping your powder dry a little bit, maintaining some flexibility. not taking on future money, although we did see them lock in Aden Hill at 6.25 moving forward, but whether they're going to be hungry and motivated

and able to get back into the big game hunting market and whether that's something we're going to see this summer with obviously the cap going up and I think everyone expecting a lot of fireworks, not just from them, but from everyone in the league. Yeah, I mean, the cap going up is obviously going to impact things pretty.

I don't expect the golden nights to have more than a dollar of cap space when the season starts. next year. That is what they do. They will not be wasting any cap space. So yes, I think however much cap space they've got, they're probably going to use it. They do have quite a few pending UFAs, but they're all the small money variety. Like they don't have anyone, they've locked up. There's been a season of extensions. You mentioned the Aden Hill one, but they also locked up Brett Howden and Keegan Colossar and Chey Theodore. And they've, I guess Theodore is kind of a big

money one. But they, they've really locked in this core. The defensive group is signed forever, the top guys. Jack Eichl is up in two years. But other than that, the forward core is pretty locked up. You're going to see Riley Smith, Brandon Sade, Victor Olifson, Tanner Pearson. They're all UFAs. But again, those are all very small guys that if you want to keep them around, if they're a good fit, especially if they play well in the playoffs, you can give them another contract. If not, all of that just adds up to a little bit more money you can spend in free agency. I think the interesting, I guess to me, the most interesting thing, other than like Will Eichael get the extension because he'll be kind of coming up for the time that you need to start

talking about that this summer. Outside of the Jack Eichael extension, I think the most interesting thing is what's going to happen with Nick Hague, who is a restricted free agent. But they've got Alex Petrangelo still signed for two more years at $8.8 million. he's got Noah Hanifin now for a very long time at 7.35. They just extended Shea Theodore at 7.42. That is a lot of money in your top three defensemen. And then you still have Braden McNabb making 3.6.

They just gave him an extension. I'm just wondering where the money is for Nick Hague. And the money will be there this offseason, but do you want to allocate that high of a percentage of your cap to six defensemen? I don't know. And I also just read an awesome piece by, Chris Johnston and Michael Rousseau on The Athletic about how this could be the summer of

Blanket on the word right now. Offer sheets, sorry. There you go. This could be the summer of offer sheets. And I'm sitting there looking at Nick Hague. Like that seems like a guy that if I was looking for a top six defenseman that's still pretty young, big guy that's comfortable in front of the net, I would be looking at Nick Hague.

So I'm curious if he ends up getting traded maybe. just to be able to restock some of those assets to maybe improve the forward group. Or if the Golden Knights just say no, we are committed to defense. We are going to pay all of our defensemen as much money as they're worth. They could do that. Or maybe some team comes in and tries to offer shoot Nick Hague and steal them from the Golden Knights. It's going to be very interesting to see what happens with him because he's been, he's not a superstar, but he's been a big part of this defense for a long time here in Vegas.

So it'd be weird to see the Golden Knights without Nick Hague back there. To me, that's the player that has the most intrigue around them going into the offseason for me. Yeah, because they've been so steadfast in the business of like strategically consolidating assets, right? Like they, players that I'm sure they like and that are valuable, they're very willing to package two or three of them as pieces to get a star player at a higher salary and keep sort of building out their team. that way, right? And that's why there's a running joke on the show where every time we do fake trades, whether it's in the off season or at the deadline, Nick Wah is consistently my go-to in terms of including him and everything. And I love Nick Waugh as a player. I just feel like, and he's had a bit of bigger role this year in terms of the injuries and kind of stepping into various spots in the lineup,

but he's a guy who probably could play consistently higher in the pecking order on a different team than Vegas. And he's in that medium salary range of $3 million or so. So that makes him a very desirable asset. And so every time I think about that, I'm like, all right, well, Waw and Hague or Wai and White Cloud or some combination of that and a pick. And it's like, all of a sudden, that's how you get into what Vegas typically does. They have about 83 million committed or earmarked next season for nine forwards, five defensemen and a goalie with Hague is the only obvious RFA that they're going to have to spend on if they decide to keep him. But, yeah, I'm very curious to see what they do there. I would have expected them. And maybe they

did have those talks to be all over Rantonin, even to acquire him and extend him before he got traded to Dallas. Certainly, if he had hit the open market, that would have been an interesting landing spot. Maybe the attention shifts to Mitch Marner as a high-priced winger, but I'd be very curious to see what their plans are and sort of how they approach that, because all of a sudden now, you know, they have that 27 first. They got Trevor Connolly out of the NCAA, signed him to his We know how they tend to treat their first rounders, so I wouldn't get too comfortable if I were him. And so all of a sudden now the possibilities, I think, expand a little bit for them with some of that space and flexibility, maybe more so than they had at this year's deadline.

Yeah, I totally agree. The cap opening up really, I mean, they've been kicking that can down the road for a while now. They've just been pressing against it as tightly as they could. Obviously, going into LTIR quite a bit over the last few years has it created a roster that was over the cap. And they finally had to shed some of that losing Marsha So in Chandler-Stevenson and William Carrier last summer. They finally felt the impacts of that. Like we saw the lightning kind of their dynasty team get chipped away at every single season. And now it's starting to sort of happen to Vegas. But the Golden Knights are fortunate that right as soon as a year after we started seeing that roster get chipped away,

the cap goes up in a big way. So all of a sudden, they have a chance to maybe reload a little bit. And I think they could go after one of those big players. But I also think they have to prioritize. prioritized getting Eichel signed. That's going to be a massive contract. We've sat here and praised him for 20 minutes. So clearly he is deserving of one of the highest salaries in the NHL. And this is a team that has been very, very skeptical about signing their own players. Like they've, they signed Petrangelo to that big contract, but that was a free agent that they had to acquire. Sometimes when you're when you're bringing a guy in, you've got to give him years you don't want to. You've got to overpay him a little bit to bring him in. This team has been very, very, very steadfast in not signing their own players beyond the years that they want. Like Jonathan Marcia, so is the best example. The dude won the Khan Smythe.

He won them the Stanley Cup. He comes back and has a 50 goal season in the last year of his deal. Like he couldn't have done anything more to prove to them that he still has the hockey left in him. But Kelly McCriman said that our data does not show us that we should sign him beyond age 35 or whatever year that they choose. And with this upcoming Eichel extension, he's going to want to be signed beyond the age that they want to sign him for. Like just flat out. Like he's going to want the max contract. And I'm curious if the Golden Knights, like I'm curious if Eichel is the type of player, the special talent that they're willing to go against what they've done all these years and just say, you know what, it's Jack Eichael.

We have no choice. Give him all the money for all the years. it's going to be very interesting to see how that goes because they haven't really been in this situation with a player of Eichols caliber. You have any parting shots on looking ahead to the playoffs? As we said, it's still not necessarily set in stone, right? L.A. is within three points.

Edmonton's within five. Six of their last seven games for the Golden Knights are against teams out of the playoffs, whether it's the flames, Canucks, Cracken, or Preds. So it's a pretty workable schedule. I still would expect us to get L.A. versus Edmonton for a fourth straight year, with Vegas in that first spot in the Pacific, we'll see I would put money on, if I did bet on

hockey on the Blues, finally overtaking the Wild based on the way the two teams have been playing. So that would set up an interesting blues Golden Knights round one that certainly isn't an easy matchup by any means, especially for a division winner because of how well the Blues have been playing. So maybe that'll be an intriguing first round series. You have any notes on that as a potential opponent or anything heading into the playoffs for this Golden Knights team? Yeah, I agree with you. I do think. that they're going to get to the finish line on this, on this division win and probably play either St. Louis or Minnesota. I think, I think that the Golden Knights match up well against either of those

teams. I will say the Blues, there's just something in the water. There's something about these two teams that for seven years, as long as the Golden Knights have existed, games against the St. Louis Blues are chaos. So expect that if it's a playoff series. I'm very excited for just chaos. These games, whether it's like sometimes they're two one, sometimes they're six, five, but they are always chaotic games with a lot of crazy stuff happening. I, the blues are, the blues remind me of like the way the Golden Knights used to be built where it's like, they don't have any superstars,

but they just have so many like B plus level players that it just, it's like, it just feels nonstop wave after wave after wave like when do the bad players come over the boards. That's, that's the way I view the blues. I think it's a tough matchup for anyone in the playoffs when matchups become more important.

In terms of the importance of winning the Pacific, I do think that that's a, big thing. And the Golden Knights players and Bruce Cassidy have emphasized that over the last couple weeks. They think winning the Pacific is a big difference because and if LA were to overtake them, I don't think it's that big of a deal because I think the

Golden Knights match up well with the Oilers. They haven't played well against the Kings. And that has been something that's happened for a while. It used to be the 131 trap that the Kings would play. The Golden Knights really struggled getting through the neutral zone with that. They don't like to dump the puck. They want to carry the puck into the zone. And against one three one, you have to just somehow, sometimes you just have

would accept that you're not going to be able to carry the puck in, and they wouldn't. And they'd commit turnovers and the Kings would take advantage of that. Well, this year they've changed. They aren't playing the one through one, but their centers are so good. And Quentin Byfield taking the step to being an awesome player has completely changed the feel of the Kings for me. Like, I think that team is so much better than the Kings teams we've saw the last couple of years.

I think they're going to be a real problem for Edmonton if they get that series. So the fact that if one of the teams is going to catch the Golden Knights, it's probably going to be the Kings, I think helps Vegas because that's the one matchup they really don't want in the first round is the Kings, I think. So I think St. Louis or Minnesota would be an easier matchup for them than Edmonton, but I don't think that they're afraid of that Edmonton matchup, especially with McDavid and Drysidal looking banged up and not themselves right now. Like if those two aren't close to being at their peak performance, the Oilers are overmatched against most teams in the playoffs. So it's going to be interesting. It should be a fun battle.

I think that battle in the central is going to be absolutely brutal between those top three teams and whoever comes out of it is probably going to be pretty beat up. So the West is wide open. Yeah, the Blues are a tricky team for Vegas because under Jim Montgomery, something they've done really well is limit the mistakes they make in terms of turnovers. And they don't really give up anything off the rush now. They've been very disciplined about getting back defensively. And so you mentioned those historical matchups against the Kings and how sometimes the Golden Knights could get frustrated because, you can't just move north-south as freely. All of a sudden, I think that would require a bit of an adjustment for them

in terms of getting through that defensive structure. I'm with you on the Kings thing, though. There's been a couple games this year where the Golden Knights have been so good defensively, yet for whatever reason. And the most recent one in Vegas is a good example of that. They just got completely detonated by the King's offense and gave up whatever six, seven goals along the way. So, yeah, that'll be interesting to track.

All right, we're going to get out of here. I'll let you plug some stuff on the way out. I wanted to in particular save a few minutes for you to talk about the piece you just put out at the athletic about goalies and shooters and that kind of one-on-one matchup and all the tricks of the trade and everything. A topic near and dear to my heart, we just had Woodley on earlier this week talking a lot about that as well. So let the listeners know a little bit about that and where they can check you out and what you got in the works moving forward. Yeah, thanks, man. I've been doing a lot of goalie stuff this season.

Obviously still following the Golden Knights closely. I'm at most practices in every game. but most of my time this season has kind of been shifted to analyzing goalies around the NHL, and it's been real fun. I started this kind of monthly column called goalie tracking, where I really get into the weeds and look at slow motion replays and show exactly how goalies are doing what they're doing, kind of looking at the footwork, looking at the hand placement, just really small details that you don't really notice unless you look at the replay

and slow it down. And then this last week, I kind of flipped the tables, and I was like, let's look at this from a shooter's perspective. Like, obviously, I know the goalie position a little stronger, but that kind of gives me a different perspective on how these shooters are scoring. And it just really stands out to me this year. And the last couple of years, the trend in the league of because these goalies are as good as they are, skating, they're just such good skaters that they're always in the right

positions. They have found the mathematically best way to stop pucks where there's just no net to shoot at. You almost can't beat them one-on-one. all the goals now are scored by lateral passes or deflections or screens. The only way to beat these goalies one-on-one, it's not about who can shoot the hardest or who can shoot the most accurate. It's about who can trick the goalie and hide their true intentions. And you start looking at the stick blades of these elite scorers as they're coming in on goalies one-on-one.

And it is amazing the amount of false information they give to the goalie in terms of they'll open their stick blade real wide and make it look like it's going to be a high blocker shot. And they keep that stick. blade wide like that for most of the release. And then like I had one with Crosby where he just turns it down at the last second that that toe of the blade catches the puck. It whips it down low. And all a sudden the goalie's throwing his blocker out. Looks like an idiot. And the puck's sliding underneath his pads. And it's all because they're just manipulate like I wrote it about it in the story that the amount of time a goalie actually has to react to a shot is so much less than we actually think.

Most of their their reactions are just based on the body language. And these shooters are have learned just give them false body language. Show them the body language of one shot and shoot in another place. And it's so difficult for the goalie. It's fun to watch as a goalie. It's a little bit torturous. But it is really cool to watch this chess match between shooters and goalies as both positions become more specialized, more trained from a young age with specialized coaches. It's just getting more and more intricate what you have to do to beat the other side.

It's a lot of fun to watch and it's a lot of fun to write about. So the reviews on that story were very good. I'm excited to write more stuff like that. Awesome, buddy. No, I really enjoy that. I think in particular, like, the shooters are getting so good now at disguising when they're going to shoot to your point in terms of, like, all these guys now can, without sacrificing any precision or velocity on their shots,

like shoot from when the puck's at awkward angles, like, in their feet, we're out wide from their body, and there's no real difference in it. So it's become a nightmare for goalies, but it's very exciting for us as viewers. That was awesome. I highly recommend everyone checks that out. Jesse, enjoy the stretch run. Enjoy the playoffs as well. Hopefully I'll see you in Vegas in round one. Join the PDOCs Discord. If you're a listener, get in there and watch the games with us every night. Smash the five-star button and leave us a nice little review wherever you listen. And that's all for another week of shows. We'll be back Sunday night with Trans for our usual Sunday special.

I hope everyone has a great weekend. And thank you for listening to the HockeyPedioCast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.