The Hockey PDOcast - Good Process, Better Results, and the Pittsburgh Penguins

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Jesse Marshall to break down Pittsburgh's start to the year, the small yet impactful changes they've made, and how they're hoping to keep turning good processes into better results.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/a2QGRpJc84This podcast is produced by Dominic SramatyThe 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 Filipovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name is Dimitri Philipovich. And making his triumph and return of the shows, my good buddy, Jesse Marshall. Jesse, what's going on, man? It's been a while. Good to be back.

Happy to be here. It's going to be fun. So we're going to talk about the Pittsburgh Penguins today. A team you're obviously very familiar with. And one that is now seven and six. And that is because they're winners of four in a row. They're coming off this trip through California, where part of this is largely fueled by that 10 to 2 victory over the sharks,

but they had a 20 to 5 goal differential over this four-game winning streak that they're on. And so they're bouncing back. And I think the reason why I note that is it's nice to see the strong early season process that we kept citing, right, where you look at a lot of the underlying metrics, all the markers we tend to focus on early in the season, suggested they were playing pretty well, certainly generating a lot offensively. And so you were just waiting for that to finally turn. into results and it has over these past couple games.

And so I thought it would be a good opportunity here for us to get together and kind of talk about that, but also sort of like what's changed and kind of the process as a whole this season. Yeah, for sure. You know, I think I think coming out of the summer, Demetri, there was just this like sense of joy from Pittsburgh and that they'd had this general manager come in that sort of shared this vision of how the team should play. And the signings that the general manager was making sort of seemed to be in line with what

the coach was interested in doing, which was a really gross disconnect just throughout the entire Ron Hextall era in Pittsburgh. And parties didn't seem to be on the same page. So you come back, you have a new bottom six, you have Eric Carlson. But it was pretty evident in the preseason Demetri that the soup was going to be made the same way, right? Like the system hadn't changed. And a lot of people felt nervous about that. I think because the system seemed to be vulnerable to one, I think, father time. You know, players are just not fast as they were six years ago, and a lot of that core group's still there.

And then also, like, the mismanagement of the roster, we talked about that. It was just such a disharmony in how the team was playing. And they got something I called Red Sea Syndrome, Demetri, which I'll explain to you shortly here. It's those, the hallmark of the Mike Sullivan system has been this dialed up forecheck, you know, probably a step back from like what Florida and Seattle did last year,

but still two-man, really aggressive, up-ice, disrupting lanes, taking that D-D-D pass away. But the other players, to be true, were so far back from that forecheck, right? It was a one-two-two-in-structure, but when you activate two of your front half, you're left with one man in the middle and two defensemen at the back. And it sort of created this like auto bond, basically, for teams to just have this ease of access into the penguin zone. And it was a free entry, really. And, you know, a lot of times the forecheck would work. They'd get a puck, a turnover. You know, they'd get a loose puck.

But it was not what it was. It was no longer dictating the tempo of the other team. And let's be honest, you know, since this heavy four checks sort of become more popular in the NHL, a lot of teams have just developed really good strategies to work around it. So what was a moment of vulnerability for Pittsburgh? They were staring at three and six. They were in games, but they were allowing these just horrifically backbreaking goals off of the circumstances I just described. When they get to the West Coast, Demetri, you're watching the game and you think, wow, this isn't the same hockey team.

And it's because the system has just totally changed. I think that, you know, the clamoring that was going on for people to kind of like have the penguins dial it back some. That's exactly what they've done. That two-man four checks become a one-man four-check. They have two solid players in the neutral zone in the middle of that one-two-two that are trying to muck it up. And for a while, I kind of thought like, oh, I want to see if this is circumstantial. Sometimes teams do this on the road.

They simplify the game on the road, right? They dump and chase. They play simple hockey. They came back home to Pittsburgh against the sabers after the road trip and did the exact same thing. And the Penguin's social media team usually puts out this video at the end of a game where if the Penguins win, they have this helmet they pass around, the players give a little speech. They clip something really interesting in the video. And it's Mike Sullivan walking in the room and laying it out for, like, they call.

caught him laying it out for everyone. He says, great job, guys. We did what we wanted to do and stayed above them the entire third period. What do you go back and watch the video, Dimitri, you can watch it happen. You know, the one four checker is providing a, what I would describe as cursory level of pressure. It's not even really like engaging all that much. It's 10, 15 back feet further from what we'd seen before. Then on top of that, you've got this whole muck of players in the It almost looks like from time to time like they're running a 1-4 because everybody's backed up so far. But what you're seeing now, teams are dumping it against Pittsburgh. That D is deep.

They're there to get that puck early and they are just springboarding Sidney Crosby and Evgeny Malkin off to the races and catching these teams that are chasing these dumped puckins with their pants down a little bit. So I mentioned this because it's discernibly changed the way the team has played. I think offensively things were going fairly well for them all year. their finishing wasn't there necessarily early in the season. That's come around a lot since that's shark's drubbing that you mentioned. That's sort of like got everyone on the level.

Open the fun gates. Yeah. But, you know, the defensive part has been critically. You know, Tristan Jory, didn't look himself earlier in the year. They've had to play a lot of Nadelcovic and Magnus Holberg, even up recently in this road trip. They have invested their resources in protecting the blue line. And, you know, we talk on this show all the time, Dimitri, about coaches who go down with the ship in their system, right? They love their system.

It is their pride and joy. They are not going to change it. And the players are the problem. This is one of those rare situations. And it's very classic of Mike Sullivan where he says, no, no, no. I think the system might be the problem. And I think we might need to change this to the point that it's the first thing out of his mouth when he walks in the locker room after victory. Well, I think you and I generally welcome and encourage aggression, right?

But I think doing so in a tactical and calculated manner with, you know, at appreciation for. situational awareness is important, right? Kind of baking all of that in and finding the right balance of it. And it's really interesting, both seeing that and hearing you talk about it, because on the one hand, we all know this stat by now that this Penguins team is by far the oldest roster in the NHL, right? And so you generally equate that with, all right, well, you don't want to necessarily lean too much on an emphasis of skating when you have that type of group.

But then you look at the blue line, and for the most part, it's very mobile, right? especially like you had Carlson who can move very well, Latang, Pedersen, Graves for his size, certainly covers a lot of ground and with his reach should be able to handle speed coming at him. So on the one hand you go, okay, well, it's an old group, but the blue line is actually very mobile.

And so you would be able to, you think, play that way. But something I've really come around on and, you know, gained an added appreciation for over the past couple years, is this like five-man element of how, where one person is directly impacts the other people on the ice, right? And so in this case, a lot of times we equate like rush defense to just purely, all right, how much is the defender gaping up?

How aggressive are they holding the blue line? Are they trying to contest it or are they sagging back and conceding the entry? Where in reality, if you have good back pressure and you have the connectivity between the layers, right, if you have a back check coming, if you have a forward that's, pounding the puck carrier, pretty much any NHL defenseman for the most part is going to be able to step up and look far more aggressive defending because of that, right? That's why during all those Darrell Sutterers in Calgary, even like in Eric Good Branson had phenomenal 5-15 results because everyone was so intertwined defensively in the neutral zone that a forward was able to be right

behind the guy. And then all of a sudden, Eric Branson looks like he's actually pretty mobile defending. And then you take him out of that situation. And suddenly it's not as not as easy for him off the puck. So in this case, I think just the forwards leaving the defenseman on an island a little bit there opened that up quite a bit. And so I do think that's like a very key thing to focus in on in terms of these changes that they've made as the season's gone along. And we can get into the coaching as well, right? Because that personnel versus coaching and system is such a fascinating combination that could probably, you know, merit its own show really for us. Yeah, I agree. And I, so, you know, going and looking at Mike Sullivan specifically to

I thought, you know, in the early tenure of his national hockey league career anyway, as a head coach, I go back to 2016, Tampa Bay, very aggressive team. We're eating the Penguins alive on the breakout, new breakout, mid-series, penguins win. They go on the Stanley Cup. Next year, Ottawa, 131, Nashville, 131, very stringent systems, tough to play against the neutral zone. He changes the breakout, finds a way around it. But then there's this gap, right, where it's almost like from that point to present day, the leash kept getting longer and longer and longer. And when the success didn't come, the alternative was we've got to turn the heat up.

We're not doing enough on the front end of the ice. But when you watch these videos now from this road trip, Dimitri, I'm just capturing the sentiment you grabbed there a minute ago. They're generating so much more offense now from their ability to actually get the puck in the hands of their defensemen sooner, right? And if you're clogging things up in the neutral zone, you're running this trap, you allow your defenseman to be aggressive, step up, get a loose stick on a puck and generate their own turnovers, right? So, you know, I think it's funny to hear Sullivan using the phrase like stay ahead of them because in all these clips, you can draw a line from where the lead man on the breakout is. I love this, like we're looking at overhead view on the on the video, but you draw a line. Everybody's literally in front of them. I mean, it's just he's doing exactly what they say.

and the mass amount of bodies that you have in the neutral zone, I mean, if you just, you know, this team, I don't want to paint them as slow because you watch them play off the counter and you watch them play offensively and they're anything but that, right? That is not who they are. But playing fast and, you know, having a fast system,

I think are two discernibly different things. I don't think that this team had the guns to be able to make up the ground that they lost from that heavy forecheck. You talk about backchecking. and providing pressure, it's really hard to do that if you're at the goal line and the other team's just thrown a pass up past the red. You've got a lot of ground to make up before you can get back into that play and have any semblance of impact whatsoever. So it's just a numbers game, right? You know, the forecheck was ineffective. Teams were getting right around it and then facing

a three-man unit or a two-man unit down to get the zone and create a play. So I think that where you're at today, you know, is still respecting of the players that Kyle Dubus brought in. Like you haven't wholesale changed everything in a way. It's still the same system, frankly, to me, it's a one, two, two. You just moved it back a couple feet, changed where your resources are allocated and now look at the results. But Carlson, LaTang, even Ryan Graves. I mean, these are guys now that are all of a sudden finding themselves with opportunities to play offense that didn't find them before because they were doing so much work in the back. in to clean things up, you know, try to maintain gap on a 3V2 rush. You know, when you're investing

your resources there defensively, you know, you're losing opportunities elsewhere to be able to use your skill set. So I actually think that although this may be less freewheeling in nature, if you will, it's creating opportunities for freewheeling for the defensemen by nature of how many turnovers it's creating. The conversation around, I mean, coaching in general is interesting, but particularly, I think, in Mike Sullivan's case, right? Because right now you look up and, okay, he's the second longest tenure coach, I believe, just behind John Cooper in Tampa Bay. And we know that generally coaches are pretty set in their ways in terms of, like,

preferences, right? And kind of like little quirks in terms of how they ideally like their teams to play. And now the mark of a good coach is generally based on your personnel being malleable enough to change things, even if it's just on the margins, not necessarily fundamentally. And that's kind of what you're describing here with Sullivan. But I think it's especially tough to probably get away from it. And when things were going bad early in the year, and especially last year, I saw a lot of complaints about it because, all right, you had success playing a very distinct way.

When he came in and took over this Penguins team, their hallmark was not only that tactical aggression, but also like just playing fast, right? Not necessarily even having fast skaters. It was a younger team at the time. But I wouldn't have necessarily described them as beyond a few players, like the fleet is the foot, but the decision-making and the pressure in terms of getting the puck into the neutral zone and then attacking the other team was there and that was a staple. And then there became this massive just widening golf and gap between the front office

and the coaching seemingly in terms of the players they were equipping them with, especially in that bottom six. And so that is one thing. You know, the Carlson move got a lot of the attention. They paid Tristan Jari to keep him. They paid Ryan Graves credit to bring him in. But Caldy was coming in and essentially, just completely wholesale changing the bottom six was probably the most impactful thing.

I mean, they should have done and they certainly did this offseason, right? Actually giving Sullivan players who might not necessarily give him that added offensive punch we were looking for, although they finally started chipping in with a few goals here and there most recently, but allowing them to play in a way that makes more sense for what he ideally wants his bottom six to look like. Yeah, and just having a bottom, you know, look, the thing is, Demetri, this is always, going to be a top heavy team, right? I mean, you have Crosby and Malkin up there. You know, that's always going to dictate things and that's where the attention is going to go. But you can't supplement that with bottom six that's essentially hemmed in their own zone

at the tune of like, you know, 60, 70 percent of the time, right? You know, I'm not going to sit here and say that Matt Nieto and Noel Cherry and Lars Eller and the guys that he's brought in have been offensive wonder kinds. But they haven't, right? Like Lars Eller is arguably the best out of that group. But what they aren't doing is hemorrhaging scoring chances. They're giving them, Mike Sullivan, they're giving Mike Sullivan opportunity to roll four lines effectively. They've taken Jeff Carter out of the lineup where need be and replaced him with Vinnie Hino Strosa and other players like that that are just leg players, right? They've, they brought back Redeem Sehorna, who, you know, X Maple Leaf spell a coffee there, who's completely changed the complexion of how

that third line rolls. And if you go on Money puck, the same. morning, Demetri, you look up the top forward lines with at least 200 minutes. You're going to find there's a hornell line in the top 15 this morning. So, you know, the decision making has definitely at least given Sullivan a fighting chance and the ability to strategically deploy lines. And I can't stress enough last year, he couldn't just run to. He had to put the bottom six out. You know, I think there's there's criticism to be made in how he did it.

But by, you know, given the roster construction and the makeup of the team, there was just nothing he was going to do to turn that bottom six into anything productive. So, you know, that's really the critical piece to this. You mentioned the defense already. We touched on that, but improving those two areas. And it was just, and doing it in a way where you also cut so much fat. You know, we've talked about Jeff Petrie's issues have been well documented for Detroit this year and what he's got going on and oftentimes not playing. McHale Granlin's gone to San Jose, you know, as a part of the car. Carlson deal, but it was just very bizarre to not only see, you know, so much help come in,

but to see so much fat get cut so quickly. You know, again, this is still a two-line team. I don't want to give any bones about that. I mean, Crosby and Malkin are making this thing go in a way that would make you think they're 25 years old. But they at least now have the ability to hang tough with these deep teams that can roll for. They can do so in a much more confident way now. Well, I would argue the penguins probably, I mean, the Bruins are up there, I believe, but I think the penguins above all else are running the most like extreme, just in terms of territorial zone deployment of their forward groups right now. Like if you look at it, Eller and Achari are pretty much eating the entirety of all the defensive zone draws.

And that's freeing up Malkin and, especially Malkin's line, but Crosby to an extent as well to put in their work on the offensive zone draws. and they're really splitting up those zones. And so while the bottom six hasn't necessarily provided that much offensive punch, the fact that with their usage, Lars Eller's line is up seven, four, I believe this is a five one five, no la Charis is drawing even at two two. All of a sudden, if the top six is going to be healthy and intact and producing the way they are,

you can live with that, right? Because you're just not losing those minutes. In fact, when Ellers line out, you're winning a little bit. And then the top six comes out and they take over and do the rest. And so I think that's been a big change. You mentioned the Carter thing. That was kind of like in passing, but that is a massive. And it's not even about, you know, Vinnie Strosa coming in or whoever is going to replace him,

but just having someone more functional there that can play a bit faster and actually contribute in some capacity is huge. I mean, we saw obviously the signs were on the wall last year. But Carter being on the ice for zero five on five goals this season in the first like 10 games or whatever. It's just you can't get away with that in today's NHL, right? having a bottom six and even a fourth line that can at least provide something in some capacity is just you can't get around it, right? You need it. And so in this case, they're actually getting that to some degree.

And the baseline, like they needed so little last year and they just fell short. And so I think at this point, it seems underwhelming, but I do think they're actually clearing that and all of a sudden that's what's leading to some of these better results. Yeah. And you add all of that stuff in, Dimitri, with this new look and this new life that teams had over this road trip where they beat some pretty decent teams. It beat some tough teams. You know, that's that I said, I'm going to say this in the athletic tomorrow. It changes the trajectory of how you view this team.

It really, truly does. The not having to share Chris Latang, you know, I know we're going to get in of Guinea-Malka. That's changed the complexion of the top six immensely. And now having this like constant offensive-minded presence on both of those, you know, units that can drive play and be more like a sort of a fourth forward for that group. You know, it's taken the burden off Crosby and Malk, and I think even in zone entries, you know, their numbers are slightly down this year because they just don't have to do all the work anymore, right? So, yeah, I think that, you know, looking at the Metro, they're not going to

skate with, like, the Rangers are very good right now. Carolina is still very good. There are teams that are a class above them. But what do you think about these upcoming meetings with those teams, I think the penguins are much more equipped to handle them playing this style of hockey than if they had gone out against their New York Rangers, sent two guys in the offensive zone running 100 miles an hour with no one to care about what goes on behind them. I think we probably both know how that might have turned out for them. So you think about those games now in a much different way and the matchups and what the neutral zone looks like. It takes on a much different shape. So, you know, look, in a seven game series, the Penguins are not going to be favored against either of those teams. but I think they're giving themselves a fighting chance now

and taking a step back and sort of having the realization to say we are not who we were when we won, but we can still hang with these teams if we give ourselves a better chance to do so. Well, their upcoming schedule this coming week, I think they have a game against the Blue Jackets, but then it's Devils now, albeit without his shear, and Hughes most likely,

but then hurricanes, golden nights, Rangers. And the Rangers, it's funny, you mention them because it seems like it always comes back to the Rangers when you're talking about the Penguins, but they're a disaster, If you're going to play the way that the penguins played in terms of that for-check, you're talking about what we're seeing here against the Rangers team, even though they're slightly different this year,

they are going to take full advantage of every opportunity they get once they get behind those guys. And I promise we won't do a conversation on the Oilers here today because even though that is the hottest news around the league, right, with the coaching change they made on Sunday afternoon, I talked about it with Shannon Goldman on Thursday. I talked about it with Matt Larkin on Friday. My thoughts are well documented on it, but how it ties in here is that we had this full conversation about, all right, well, a lot of their defense of metrics look pretty good, right? Like, it seems like the goaltending, the same percentage is just out of whack, and that's what's doing them in.

But very similar to this, they were getting caught with their players up ice quite a bit. And then that was leaving their defensemen out on an island. Those defensemen weren't doing a good job whenever they were presented with a two-on-one. They were handling it incorrectly, certainly, and the goalies weren't making safe. But that's probably something that a lot of the modeling and a lot of our ideas of defending in today's game still probably haven't been properly calibrated for how threatening and dangerous giving up these situations where all of a sudden it's a three on two, two on one and what the chance of results. Like it's probably even more dangerous and higher value for the other team than we still tend to quantify or think about it. Yeah, and I agree with everything you just said. I mean, I think the Oilers were really hemorrhaging sort of the same chance, right, where there's just too much space for the other team to gain speed. And I also think they were kind of poor in picking up the pieces where if they survived the fray, Demetri, and the other team didn't score on the entry, as everybody was arriving back into the play, they just weren't picking up the right play. That's a, that in and of itself is a learned quality, right? Like defensive transition hockey, like you're coming back late into the play. You've got another four. at least coming back in the zone with you, who takes who?

Like, what does that look like? That didn't seem to be clearly identified to me in watching the Oilers. And it wasn't just they were given the chances up. You know, if they got a save or they did recover, the cleanup process was equally as ugly. And that's, it's a layered burden. You know, that's, I think that highlights the problem when you run into these, these systemic issues where you're giving up so much space in the neutral zone. You can't do anything flat-footed with no momentum, right?

And, you know, we showed a clip on the screen here a couple of times of Detroit running three men strong, hip to hip, coming across the red line and two defensemen standing there going, now what, right? I mean, that, you know, you survive that situation. They're going to likely, if they maintain possession, everybody's got to get back and pick somebody up. That's where those continued breakdowns occur. So it's not just opening the door and letting them into the zone. It's letting them in the zone for five to ten seconds before everybody else can stabilize and giving them sort of this cart blanche to run out there and do whatever they want. It's just, you know, it's not good enough. And all it takes sometimes, like, and you'll see it in this clip on the screen,

is a little delay. One little delay, and now you make a 25, 30 foot pass. And there's no one there that can do anything about that. You know, it's just with teams like, you know, the ones that can carry the puck in this league, the devils, the Jack Hughes. You know, they will just absolutely expose you in these situations. You know, time and space is the most precious commodity that you could provide to those players. They love it. They look for it.

And this is, you know, it's almost to me, it's just too welcoming for that. You know, you're almost, you know, extending them that invitation. Yeah, it's interesting because I think generally everyone acknowledges and understands that, you know, the game has moved much more, especially in the regular season to that rush element, right? And it's like the teams who can attack most freely and most consistently off the rush are the most dangerous offensive teams. And that's the easiest way to create offense because the other team's not set defensively. and we know that those shots are more likely to go in. And yet at the same time, I think when we think about it from the other perspective,

from defending, we probably don't consider that as much. Like we look at high danger chances and stuff like that. But for the most part, I think one rush shot is just so much more valuable than a one off of an in-zone sequence. So I did want to know that one considering kind of like their defensive profile and how some of the metrics look good. But at the start of the season, it was so wasn't leading to good results. Okay. Do you want to get into Mr. 101 of Ganyi Malkin here? Yeah, Mr.

Mr. Outside the list. Yeah. Well, he's certainly on our list. He's on our list. He's always been on our list. Totally just a renaissance from him this season. And I say that tentatively because he didn't have a bad year last year, Dimitri. It wasn't like he's coming off, you know, trying to rebuild his game or anything like that.

Two things I'm going to say, healthy legs. Last year came in. off of the surgery, lower body. You could tell that that's sort of like, I'll use the term gallop because I think it's super appropriate for him, right? He's like a horse gallowing through the neutral zone. That element maybe wasn't as strong for him.

He didn't look as stable at the start of the year. Things got better as time went on. But I think now the added element, Dimitri, of Riley Smith, his new boy, as a man who can come in and literally do everything for you in an offensive unit, you know, dig up loose pucks, carried across the blue line. You need to help defensively.

He's got that covered. You know, there's not a lot he can't do. You know, I think it's taken this burden off of the Gennie Malkin. Now he, you know, there used to be the sharing of Chris Lattang, right? Who was going to deploy with Lattang? It was going to be 87 or 71. And you can see Sullivan kind of trying to spread him around a little bit. And they don't have to do that anymore.

Chris Lattang, who himself is having a phenomenon. seasonal season is now anchored to the hip of Afghani Malkin. That's a benefit he gets to enjoy 24 hours a day. And you can see it in the results. I think you're getting some of that 2009-era bully Malkin back in terms of his offensive approach is very straightforward, very, very strong, getting to scoring areas, letting him rip, his hands seem back. It's just, it's been a lot of fun to watch.

And Sidney Crosby's been really good this year too. I don't want to take away from that, but the Malkin show, when he gets like this, Dimitri, you'd be hard pressed to find someone more fun to watch in the National hockey league. Certainly. And I'm going to knock on wood here as I say this.

Remarkable run of health from him. Yes. You mentioned last year, and certainly like the amount of juice he seems to have skating this year looks different, but still, just not having missed the game in this long is quite remarkable. And all of a sudden,

you look up and this is year 18 for him. It's his age 37 campaign. He's on pace for 50 goals and 100 points. And his 4.08 points per 60 is the third best of his career, which is remarkable because he's had some absolute banger seasons. And you go on down the line, I think he's 10th in the league. And in slot passes, you could argue that passes. Let's think about that for a minute.

Let's ruminate on that. Yes. And you can certainly see it. And honestly, he's pretty unlucky, I think, at this point, to only have the eight assists or whatever, I believe he has equal amount of goals. Riley Smith struggled the first three or four games, Dimitri. I'm talking golden opportunities that he couldn't put in. Well, in record Raquel has as many goals as you and I do.

That's right. And we'll talk more about him in a second. And it's not for a lack of trying. Like he certainly, especially lately, got quite a few opportunities. And we'll talk more about that. I just want to stick with Malkin here, though. Yeah, I mean, all of it is phenomenal. I think, and you're going to talk about the goals and the assists.

and we're seeing all the clips there in the beautiful plays, right? Those are the highlights. But part of it is because of that skating this year where he looks like he has so much more in the tank, I think his defensive work and how much he's hustled and how hard he's backtracking and getting deep in the zone and starting to provide that support for his defenders so that they are not all by themselves, how he is in the neutral zone, just attacking players that have the puck, right? He's going and he's getting it.

It's not him being kind of a bystander where he's just waiting for one of his teammates to do the work. And then once he gets the puck, then he'll activate and be engaged. Like, it's about as involved off the puck as I can really remember him seeing. And I know that sometimes that that's a knock on him where there's like kind of that on and off switch. But this year, it really feels like it's been all systems go pretty much every single time he's been on the ice. Yeah, it's definitely a lot more proactive. I think it's a word you could probably use to describe it. And that's not to say Malkin was ever, you know,

bad defensively. There wasn't aloofness, I think, from time to time when he felt like he needed to create himself. That's the circumstance I'm going to paint. And I think that, you know, from the situation we talked about where, you know, last year, you know, he's playing with, you know, Jeff Pantry a lot and that didn't work out really well. They struggled together for obvious reasons. There was this sort of desire to make it happen alone, right? And you got a lot of like Herculean individual efforts on zone entries, a lot of cheating up ice to try to get that pass that never came because the puck wasn't won yet.

And I think that, you know, I don't want to, Jason Zucker was a very good linemate for him, but I don't know that those two ever really got on the same page in terms of how they wanted to operate in the offensive zone. So you ended up, I think, with him sort of saying, I'll do it myself. And sometimes that worked out as evidenced by his point total last year. And sometimes it didn't, right?

Sometimes it caused a lot of undue stress on the defense. He was turning pox over. But I think this is the best ecosystem he's ever been in, probably since going back when he was playing with Peter Secora and Ryan Malone in like 2008. You know, this is. Let's remember some guys. Yeah. You know, this is, I think he's got help now. And Ricard Raquel and Riley Smith are two guys that can are very, they're very jack of all trades.

So I think that's sort of encouraged his participation in the other areas because he doesn't feel like he's got to do that anymore. It's got line mates, winning puck battles. He's got linemates taking the initiative and running it into the zone themselves. You know, he feels confident. I think dumping it in now. I think you've seen him dump the puck in more this year than he ever has because he knows that he's confident and the guys that are going to get it. It's just a much more thorough game. And I have to lean on the health piece too, like you mentioned it, you know, to have your faculties about you in this way.

And your legs especially because everything that he does is just so much burst in it, right? Like from his first step to the way he closes on a defenseman to even his shot, you know, it's all just got this big musly umph and you kind of like didn't see that as much last year as a result of some of the injuries he had and when his legs weren't there you know it really seemed to take a lot away from him so and i i think too you know we talk about like reactive versus proactive in the defensive zone i think if you're struggling from a skating perspective i think you're looking for opportunities to make that easier on yourself right positioning yourself in certain lanes um you know turning your back uh or posture on the play in a certain way to to to try

to get a loose puck and whatever it was, you know, I think that it's much more natural for him this year. He looks at home and everything seems to be driven by this immense amount of confidence that he has right now. I think there's also probably a cumulative effect where a lot, and not that it's necessarily completely absolved this year, but, you know, last year where if his line or Crosby's lines not on the ice, like they're just not going to create a goal. And there's that that feeling of, okay, if I don't do this, no one else will. And then so you almost, even if it's not your intention, you're going to start seeing yourself drifting and cheating a bit and conserving your energy for offense because you know that that's actually what your team needs

the most from you. Right. And so in this case, it's easier to play kind of a bit more of a balanced game. And it's funny you bring up Riley Smith and Jason Zucker there because Zucker was really productive by just watching Riley Smith's like puck IQ and his ability to just get to open spots and provide that outlet for Malkin and his distribution and playmaking skills, that's been really cool to watch and pay dividends for them. So I think it's, you hit the nail on the head. It's been a perfect fit for them together.

Yeah. He was really strong in Vegas with zone entries. That was always a big strength of Smith's analytically. You could see it on tape too. It was really safe, effective plays with the puck. And I just don't feel like Malkin had a partner who could do that. It produced a lot of volatile situations for him. And I think now, you know, you end up with this version of him in the offensive zone where it's Malcon's the one that's doing the stocking on the open ice now.

You know, you'll see him in a lot of situations, Dimitri completely leave the zone. He'll cross the blue line and leave the offensive zone, do a quick loop and then come back in unmarked and sort of like stalk down that open space, you know, leading up to the net. You know, defensemen are turning their back to him because he's skating behind them and then kind of doing this death loop. And by the time you come back in, nobody's got him marked, right? So it's, you know, his, I would argue his range this year has been a lot greater than it usually is. And that's not just because he's got healthy legs. I think he's finally not being the guy in an offensive zone that has to make everything happen. He can, he can receive a pass.

I mean, you mentioned his high danger slot pass numbers are up. That's not shocking to me because he's got two line mates that are super effective in the net mouth. They can get to open space. And you get the sense that when Ricard Raquel gets one, he's probably going to get like nine. That's the way it worked for Riley Smith. he was just knocking on the door, couldn't make it happen. They started coming bunches. But again, I got to go up.

The ecosystem piece is so huge here. And you really get the sense that this is the right fit for him and the right group of players for him in a way that they really haven't been able to capture. And I don't know that they ever made it a focal point, Dimitri, right? Like when Rickechal got acquired, who did he play? We went right to Crosby's line, right? And it was always Jake Gensel's, you know, obviously stapled to his hip. And, you know, just I don't, I don't know that finding someone from Malkin to play with,

was ever really the focal point of the previous regime. I think that's something Kyle Dubas set out to address immediately. I don't know if that's been a focal point of any regime. Like, think about his, I mean, I remember, and this was, what, five, six years ago by now, maybe even longer. There was like this list of just every winger that had played with, Evgeny Malkin. And it was, speaking of remembering some guys, like, it was quite a motley crew. And they've rotated, and part of it is because he's been.

so dominant and he's been able to basically do it all himself with those singular individual efforts that I think they've sort of abused that to an extent where it's like, all right, well, anyone can play with him just because he's going to be so good regardless. So let's not really care about it much. Let's not attach any investment to it. Let's just like put whoever with him. And so now it's cool that I mean, it's year 18, but he's still playing at such a high level. it's kind of cool to see actually two guys that make a lot of sense playing next to him

and then seeing that kind of take off as a result beyond just the production, right, all across the ice is really fun to watch. I mean, if you play in a fantasy pool or whatever, like Rick Arkell is probably the best by-low in the entire league right now. Three assists, zero goals in the 13 games. He's got 37 shots on goal, 71 attempts, especially the past handful of games. I think he's gotten so many opportunities.

That game in Anaheim in particular, you could tell he really wanted one and was getting a ton of looks and just hasn't been able to bury one yet. But I know he's had kind of like volatile, both Riley Smith and him have volatile years with shooting percentage. And that's kind of the nature of the beast, unless you're a true high-end finisher in this league. But he's kind of rounded out on an 11% for his career. So I imagine with this volume of opportunities, eventually, you're right, once he gets one, there's going to be a lot of goals in Ricardo, Rale's future with how well Malkin and Smith are playing next to us. him. And so if you can get in now on the ground floor, it's probably a good time. Yeah, I'd agree with that. And, you know, I think, I think ultimately, when we take a look at what he's done this year, you can discernibly look at the video, Dimitri, and see him out there

creating open space for Feggian Malkin. I mean, the points haven't been there. I know like he said, but it's the art of going in in a 2-1-1 puck battle, you know, giving your teammates an opportunity, to catch up and then winning it yourself, right? He's done it a ton. It doesn't show up on the score sheet. You walk away, you know, it's easy to look at that and say, like, oh, he hasn't had a good year. He's been doing a lot of the heavy lifting, you know, like putting on his waiters and his work boots and getting out there and opening up space that, again, allows that line

to do more of its work operationally. And if you're investing resources in Ricard Raquel in the net mouth or Ricard Raquel in the corner, who's taken on two of your. defenseman or two of your players to win a loose puck, you got a deficiency somewhere else, right? Somebody's open. And the puck distribution of that line, we saw it on a couple of the clips we ran on the video side,

but Malkin has been lethal with the distribution this year. There's one I think you had to re-through like a 45-footer up through the neutral zone. No look, right? Didn't even pick his head up, just knew where he was. It's really enhanced that group. And then adding in Chris Lattang, that, I mean, I can't, you know, that that, that alone. own will change the fortunes of most forward units in the national hockey league. It's been a real renaissance for him too.

The two of them getting all this time together, I think, has been good for both of them, frankly. It has. And it's remarkable to think that Malkin, what's he making 6.1 right now on this deal? I mean, him and Crosby being under 15 million combined, but him in particular playing at this level at that price tag, really, I mean, it's in large part what afforded them the ability to go out and spend as much as they did this past off season and add a lot of these players we're talking about right and so that's just like a such a competitive advantage when your top players

are making that little relatively speaking and so it's cool to see I really wanted to give him some love here because you know arguably the most like underappreciated not underrated but underappreciated superstars of his generation and so um not only historically speaking but in present day as well and he's had that renaissance season as you mentioned so If Ganymalk and Rocks. You mentioned him and Latang and having Latang out there. And while I do think it's been such a net positive and you've seen the benefits of it, one thing I wonder to note is we kind of wrap up with this conversation and talk about

potential ways they can still improve and areas of the game where this team can still get better. The only negative is because they're paired up, that's providing a lot of situations where Ryan Graves is involved in offensive zone situations. And it's just like he's 28 years old now, I think. He's been in the league for five or six years. It's just not going to happen in terms of being able to process the game in a way where he can extend plays and play the way that I want my defenseman to play. Like the bombing from the point, it looks good when he connects, right?

And I think he hit the crossbar against the Sabres and the commentary team was like, wow, he can really get a hold of one, right? And it looks very pure. And he scored a bunch of goals in the past. It's just not a sustainable form of offense. And there's so many added opportunities that are probably being left on the table just because he's wasting those shots. I think our pal Jack Fraser had a stat that's a bit outdated now as a couple of games ago. But he was accounting for like the highest percentage of shots when he was out there. on the ice with the top line and over 80% of them were either being blocked or missing the net

and it's just it's you can't keep getting away with it like he lives to fire the puck either off the backboards or into the defender's shin pads and when you have either crosbie or malkin out there i want them having the puck and deciding the final outcome of the play not your least talented offensive player from the farthest spot on the ice in the attacking zone and so i just want to note that because at this point, I wouldn't expect him to fundamentally change as a player, and I get that just having them out there provides other ways he can help and insulate and all of that,

but it can be frustrating at times to watch it. Yeah, he'd shoot it from the red line if he could, I think. He'd just coming up ice and he gets... I mean, what's hilarious is the highlight real goal that Malkin scored the other night, right, where he ramps it up from behind the goal line off of the goalies back. I'm going to realize it until now, but the reason why it happens is because Ryan Graves just absolutely annihilates a puck that misses the net so badly that it winds up behind the net to begin with. I didn't even catch that in real time, but I guess the gift that keeps on giving truly is

Ryan Graves just shooting it as hard as he can aimlessly from the blue. Well, I knew his percentiles were really high for on-eye shots, you know, and was doing research on him. And I thought maybe it was just because, you know, he's like helping out and breakouts so, like, it's really good of getting the puck out of his own. And then you watch the video and I'm like, no, he's just taking them all himself. No, when the fuck comes to him, like, it's a one-track mind of like, I'm just going to wind up and shoot as hard as I can. And it's like, that's not how offensive zone play is rewarded in today's game.

Like maybe 10 years ago, not anymore. You can't really get away with it now. You're not Adam Oates, right? Yeah. Okay. What else with this team? We don't get to talk about the power play a little bit. Yeah.

Like, it's going to come around, right? think because it's like chances, shots, expected goals all through the roof, actual goals, not quite there yet, but the personnel makes sense. This doesn't seem like smoking mirrors. And so you would think it eventually coming together. That's probably the next sort of step in terms of, all right, how can we improve this even more? It probably starts with that. Sometimes it doesn't come together. You know what I mean? Like last year it didn't, right? Yeah. Like last year they had a good year of like generation, of chance generation, of quality generation, but it never matriculated and finishing.

Eric Carlson has changed this power player in a good way, and I think the evolution of it is unfolding right before our eyes. The problem with the Penguins powerplay, Dmitri, in its structure, is it's very easy to bully to the exterior of the ice, right? Sort of like this one-three-one setup right, where you got two one-timer options on the outside. I got somebody at the top, presence is front of the net. Really aggressive power kills,

will just push them to the exterior of the ice, cease like any movement off puck, and stagnate them. And that's been their Achilles' heel the entire time Mike Sullivan has been, predates Mike Sullivan. It's been a Crosby-Malkan-Latang issue the entire time they've been here.

They've had really good power plays. I don't want to discount that. You always end up feeling like maybe they were leaving a little bit on the table and how much time they spend in the exterior. Eric Carlson doesn't seem to like that. He doesn't seem to like that at all. and has kind of gone about finding his own ways to get closer to the net.

And, you know, part of that is just his presence, Dimitri, like, you know, I think penalty kills are very aware of him and where he is. And I think it's just he's very much simplifying what's going on out there. He's shooting it a lot. That sounds silly like that wouldn't be a good thing. But I think penguins are often experiencing power play paralysis where they'll have this extended period of zone time and they don't produce anything, right? Not even a shot.

when you shoot, you're forcing the defense to react, right? They have to do something afterwards and it gets everybody moving and flowing again. So he's sort of like been a nice, I think, in the last road trip, been a nice reset button where in a way, I don't think he did this a lot in San Jose, but I think you're seeing him do it now. He's sort of taking the thing by the scruff in the neck in the zone and saying, I want to be more than a trigger man. So it's been a fun evolution. He's been moving around a lot.

His legs have been active. He's darting in and out. trying to get everybody else to come with him. I think his presence has given them a very unique element on this power play where he operates and colors outside of the lines just enough that I think it gets everybody else going in the direction that they need to as well. I like that. Yeah, I mean, they're, well, their first and expected goals generated and 17th

and actual goals. And part of that is shooting percent and driven, but part of it is just seeking out specific types of shots that you probably should be getting not only for everyone when you're up a man, but especially when you have the personnel they do, right? Like there's no excuse not to basically pick what you want to do because you have the ability. You're armed with the artillery to actually accomplish it. Right.

So yeah, that's something I'll be looking forward to watching. And also, as we mentioned, their upcoming opponents is over the next handful of games and seeing how they quit themselves against them. Because, yeah, like we said, all the 5-1-5 metrics and everything you look at is looking really good, somewhere between top 5 to 10 range. And now finally seeing the results kind of start. to more so line up with it is promising, but we'll see how it goes. Anything else on the penguins here, Jesse, or do you want to wrap it up?

That's it for me. That's it for me as well. I'm glad we got to do this. I'll let you plug some stuff here on the way out because I know you're going to write about them as well. So let the listeners know about that and kind of how they can check you out. And what else you got in the works?

Yeah. So tomorrow in The Athletic will have just a breakdown of the stuff we discussed today with the system change. I'm trying to really dive into what that looks like and how you can track it from home. And then we're going to do a little visit up, I think from McKeon's hockey next week up into Toronto and take a look at what's been going on up there,

check some of those players out and maybe do a little Willie Nealander love up there because he's got some good stuff going on offensively. Ooh, that's perfect then, because let's give a little spoiler alert here on the way out. Let's tease our plans for the next time we get together to talk hockey on this show. we've been kicking around an idea of hopefully

devoting a full episode to going through the tape of Willie Nealander, the stuff he's put out there this season and how he's gotten off to just this monster start to the season where I believe he's on pace for something like 55 goals and 120 points right now in a year that's shaping up to be the contract year

of all contract years. So we've wanted to do that one for a while and we're hopefully going to get to finally do it soon. So that should be pretty fun. In terms of other plugs on my end, We've got Daryl Belfrey back on the show tomorrow. We're going to do our weekly deep dive this time on Quentin Byfield. A player who has taken a huge leap this year is becoming an awesome young player to watch. And so we're going to get into what he's been doing, how he's been doing it, all that good stuff.

The last week, the two of us did show on Powell Minchikov and people seem to really dig it. So we're going to keep them coming. If you haven't checked it out, you can watch these shows that we're doing with us as we go through the video of their ship. and the notable plays that they've put on tape on YouTube. So just search the HockeyPedio cast and the full archive of the shows we've done this season should be there. The podcast is great. Obviously, you love podcast, but just the added layer of video is pretty useful for those types of shows. So if you're a visual learner like myself, check that out.

And honestly, it's just an unbelievable treat to get someone who's just a pure goldmine of invaluable information and applicable skills training experience like Darrell, Belfry coming on and sharing it with us this season. So yeah, okay, one final thing before we get out of here, you've probably heard me talk about it at some point over the past couple weeks, but if you enjoy listening to the show, then I highly, highly recommend popping on the Hockeypedo guest Discord server as well and becoming a part of the community that we're building over there. I think we've got like 65 or so people in there right now, and that number is hopefully going to continue to grow. There's a really fun conversation that's starting up in there

amongst fellow listeners. We were chatting a bunch over the weekend about games we were watching and stuff we're seeing. So I've been jumping in there to chat as well. A lot of you have. You can come and interact with me, with other cool people, with Jesse, other people who also appear on the show.

And we're going to use it to take suggestions for future show topics and mailbags and all that sort of stuff. So the link to join is in today's show notes. And I'm also happy to pass along the invite personally. If you can't find it, so just shoot me a message and we'll make it happen. All right, that's going to be it for today's show.

Thank you for listening to us as always. We'll be back soon with plenty more of the Hockey Ocast streaming on the SportsNayr radio network.