The Hockey PDOcast - How Leon Draisaitl Uses His Diverse Skills So Efficiently

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Darryl Belfry to break down Leon Draisaitl’s diverse skill set and offensive genius. They talk about his interactions with defenders, his unique shooting style, the benefits of where he fires from, and how he sets the table for teammates.This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty 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.

Progressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey P.D.O.cast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey P.D.O.cast. My name is Dmitri Filippovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Daryl. What's going on, man? I'm excited Valentine's Day edition. What better way to spend it than than shooting on dry sidel. Sick? Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, very few things I love more than getting together every week. with you this season and just nerding out and breaking down tape of players we really appreciate. And the Andro Sital is just that. I think we're going to get into a lot of really high-level concepts that obviously apply to him.

But I think we can stretch out to other players as well, kind of a good combination of them that we see in his game. Perhaps the timing would have been more apt to do his teammate, Connor McDavid, today, after he just eviscerated the Red Wings last night. But ultimately, I think that would just be like 50 minutes of me and you making sound effects. and just laughing at tape we see. In this case, I think for Dr. Seidel, he's almost more interesting for our purposes because he's got this unique combination of diversity of skills,

and we're going to get into each of those individually, but also then leveraging them expertly to really, I think, get the most out of them and really achieve his full potential, and we've seen that the past couple seasons. So I've got so many notes here. We're going to run through a bunch of clips as we talk about her as well for those that are watching along with us on YouTube. But let's get into it because I want to cover as much ground as we can on this guy,

and there's just so many fascinating wrinkles to his game. Where do you want to start? Well, for me, like, obviously it'd be very, very easy to go into his passing because he is very unique there. And I know that we'll get into that. But for me, the number one place that I like to go when I study dry-sidal is his ability to make plays under heavy contact. I think he's the best in the NHL at being able to,

make plays inside of puck protection and inside of contact. There is so much, so many times that he is able to make the poised play. So the play, because the thing about passing and making plays is the best players in playmaking, they make a play when the other guy on the other end need. the puck, not when you need to get rid of it. And oftentimes the pass is made too early because the puck carrier is under so much duress that they have to get rid of the puck. Drysidal is a unicorn in that way because he can be, he does not care about contact, checking

pressure. He doesn't care about your stick. You can come try to hit him. you can put them in small space, you can force them into a stop. None of that matters. He has the poe. He can fend off all that physicality

and at the same time be poised and be able to make the next play when it's needed. And I think that's why he's just such a fascinating player to watch and he's so effective at being able to make other people better because you just get you the puck when you need it. Yeah, and you see that manifests itself in a bunch of different areas of his game. I had on my notes, like I think his footwork is very impressive, right? Because he's certainly not, you know, fleet of foot,

especially when you see him sharing that he's with Connor McDavid. McDavid does a lot of the movement whereas dry saddle is a bit more stationary, but his footwork in terms of not only opening up for his shot and making himself available to receive passes, but just how he can corral pucks in traffic like that, his ability to go skate the stick and shoot right off of it is pretty much unparalleled for me. Like it's just one motion. He never really slows down.

That radius of reception that we like to talk about, right? You can't throw a great player, a bad pass. In this case, it seems like he can just handle anything you throw at him because he can just kind of kick his leg out and just stop it with a skate. And then bam, it's on a stick right away and he's making a play off of it. I had that. I had also his willingness. And this is something we talked about with Kutrov quite a bit and a lot of the most skilled players

in this game. you have to have that comfort to play with the puck away from your body, right? Like he exposes it to the defender and he gets them to sort of commit and declare their intentions and really make their stick available. And then he'll make a play within that, right? And I think that sort of speaks to what you're saying in terms of his comfort and how undeterred he is in traffic where you can be up on him, you can have a stick in the lane, and he's still going to find a way to do whatever he was initially going to do.

He might just kind of go, you know, make him. one extra move to get there. Well, you have, you have like really three types of plays. You have one play that you're going, you're under pressure and you advance the puck to a safe area. So you put the puck kind of in a 60, 40, 70, 30 spot where your teammate can get it. It's not really a pass. You're just advancing it in terms of like field position. That's one. Then you have when you're under pressure, you have a play in which you're just going to possess the puck. So it's not really a threatening play. You're not looking to make it anything to the interior. You're just going to, you know, you're just going to make a safe pass, but it's definitely a pass. You're passing it to

someone, but it's more of a possession pass, usually to the outside, maybe something like low to high or a side change behind the net. Those kind of plays are, is another type of play. And then you have the plays that dry saddle makes which are he under extreme pressure he can find a way to get the puck into the most dangerous areas and it just doesn't take long for him to be able to find it and what i love about him also you mentioned his skating i think he's an underrated skater he has excellent glide uh he can use your body as a slingshot to push himself into space he gets on the outside of your hands. So he gets into your stick range, which most players,

they don't have a lot of leverage out there once you get outside in the stick. He can attack off your heels. He spins like nobody's business and makes passes inside of his spin. You mentioned how he dangles the puck out, pulls the puck into a protection to invite you to try to check. you over commit and then he'll spin off of your body opening up the passing lane that he wants. He is really the definition of a guy, if you ever wanted to watch a guy who's playing chess while you, well, in terms of like moving pieces around, being patient, making only the right play

at the right time, you know, he just has that play. And when I first came in a league, it was interesting because I was, I didn't think he skated particularly well at all. And I was like, how is this guy doing it? And I thought he was just kind of lumbering and would get pucks on the back wall and would make these great passes. And then I started to really watch him and start to see the skating ability really has. And it's, it's to do with his feel for space and the ability to then just kind of get himself into a space where you just can't defend. it looks like you have them it looks like you have a physical contact on him you might actually achieve the physical contact but let's be honest he is in complete control of play and he does

what he wants and that is just such a rare thing most players are in a take it take what you get take what you give kind of thing he's not that guy i think describing it as chess is great i think that's what i appreciate about and there's something so tactical to everything he does, right? I think he has a real key in understanding of whatever his relative limitations are physically, right? And compensating for them by just playing to his strengths instead. And you'll see that, like, he'll very rarely try to force the issue by taking the puck out wide off the rush and trying to beat you to the net that way the way you see Carter and McDavid do it because he knows that unless he has the angle there are you really off balance. He's not going to

be able to pull it off. And instead, he utilizes, you know, stopping up short, curling back around. that spin move you mentioned, buying himself time, just getting the puck into space and then being able to make a play, and then you tie in the puck protection you mentioned off the top in terms of, you know, as such a big dude with his frame, he's able to protect it and kind of survey and then make plays off of that. So, yeah, you put it all together and it's really fun to watch. You know, in going through his tape this season,

something that they really stuck out to me is, and I think this speaks to his offensive genius and kind of that level of chess he's playing, how much he messes with defenders when he's, off the puck and you'll see it like when when they're rushing the puck up the ice and one of his teammates has it and he's just sort of doing a net drive or trying to bring a defender with him through the middle lane he's so good at knocking the defender's stick out of the lane right he'll almost like negate it and lift it up when he doesn't have the puck to just create space then for

his teammate to step in and make a play it really reminds me of of something like pavel datsuk turned into an art form except i guess in datsuk's case he was doing it sometimes even what he had the puck like he would just stop it and then lift your stick and then go. But he was just able to manipulate time unlike anyone else. But you see that a lot with Dreisdahl, right? He almost, he relishes in messing with defenders, even when he doesn't have the puck, just trying to kind of poke and prop at them and lift their stick

and mess around and make life difficult for them. And I don't know, it's really fun to watch. I must be super irritating because as a defender, you're kind of standing there and you're focused on the guy with the puck, but you're aware that Dreysaitel's in the area. And then all of a sudden, he's attacking you as well. And it's just so rare, like a lot of, offensive players don't really utilize that part of the game.

Yeah, you see it on the rush. You see it in the offensive zone where he, I call it grabbing sticks. Like he'll grab a stick on the way by to open up a passing lane or to your point he'll create space or extend the skating space for someone else. It's just a heightened sense of offensive awareness of what the play needs and providing that, providing that. where I also like him off the puck is he is probably the best player in the league at that low pie on the offensive side or on the offwing side.

When I say low pie, I mean when you look at the circle, if you cut the circle in quadrants, he'd be in the bottom quadrant towards the net. I call that the low pie and being able to shoot off the pass. in that area where he's really low right at the bottom of the circle. It's a tough place to shoot from because the angle's not good. You're usually shooting it back into the goalie. He tends to be able to find the middle bar, which is really the spot to hit because that means you're going slicing the puck right past the post. But that's an off, that's an area of the ice that's not really like considered,

normally considered a really strong scoring area. It's bad, bad angle shot. and he is sitting there in that spot, like started off on the power play where I first noticed it, but he does it a lot five on five, where he'll sit in that low pie spot and he shoots one timers from there, putting it in the net,

and he's just developed that place. But when you think about a player off the puck and finding himself in like these unique areas, that is one area that is unique to him. He spends a lot of time there, and he's extremely effective in that area. on that off wing. And now his teammates know to find him there.

And, you know, you talk about being off the puck. Sometimes it's just that consistency of availability, but it's in an unusual spot. Like a lot of people, you know, they go into traditional spots. They go to the dot. They go to the hash marks. They land at the net. And this guy is in another spot that's a little unusual.

But yet because of how he plays and what he's interested in, he's able to make it really highly effective and very difficult to defend. So I love that you brought up his ability off the puck because it is phenomenal, and especially when he, how effective he is with a guy like McDavid who can be very difficult to play with. Drysidal does it as well as anybody. And I think it's because of these little nuances of being able to be, play in really intelligent spots,

even though there may be a little different than what people might expect, but he does it consistently. I'm glad you brought that up because I really want to get into a shot. And I was scared to start off with it because I didn't know how much of today's episode we would take up on it and whether we leave enough room for any of the other stuff. So we started with a little bit of the details off the puck. Now let's get into the meat of it. I want to first talk to you about the shooting motion and technique, right?

Because I think what stands out is like his stick is almost like a paddle in a sense. And when you watch a lot of these one timers, there's something so violent about how he just kind of like slaps at it and how quickly it. happens, right? He can almost look like he's sort of standing in that spot of the ice that you're talking about you see there where he looks pretty harmless, right? He's kind of stationary, unassuming. And then within a split second and it's all in one motion, he drops down to one knee and he just slaps at it and picks a spot in the corner. And I mean, it's really fun to watch. I think certainly style points. We've spoken about players in the past. It obviously looks very cool.

I think we all grew up just appreciating that type of a dropping to one knee one timer. But his utilization of it and how it's turned into such a legitimate weapon. I wanted to start with that before we talk in the kind of the geometry and what you were mentioning about his specific location on the ice. Yeah. So when we were doing the third rebuild of Matthew's shot, this shot came up as for me one to really study because the one-timer became a real area of focus for for Austin and I think dry sidles one knee one timer is fascinating and really I think it's a phenomenal shot for players to study and for players to try to utilize and the two pieces that really stand out in the one one knee one timer is one he doesn't use a big back swing if he hardly

uses any back swing actually it it's it's like an old school snapshot where you would like where you would like use, you know how you'd pull the stick back and as you were drawing it back, you would kind of turn the stick and put the toe kind of down and then that would give you, like it would engage your hands to get the snapping action. That's kind of what he does. And what I love about it is the control and the timing. He can hit a puck that's passed a lot harder because he's in so much more control and there's less range of motion that he has to be concerned about as it relates to affecting his timing.

So because his shot motion is so compact, the stick is so close to the ice, his adaptability to speed, weight, and location of the puck makes him be able to hit a lot of pucks that maybe he shouldn't. Pucks that are like way back in the back part of his stance, pucks that are coming maybe a little too hot, maybe a puck that comes in and maybe it's like bouncing or in an awkward area. He has less factors to have to worry about because he's not raising the stick over his head and having to now try to find that timing, which can be ever so difficult,

especially when you're trying to sink it with the way your feet are. And that brings me the second part of what makes it so valuable to study his one knee one timer. He consistently is able to turn his hips on the puck inside the shot motion. And what he does exceptionally well is turn his front foot down to the end boards. And the value of that is it allows him on that offwing side to really follow through properly towards the net and really engage the entire rotation inside the shot motion. And even in a small, compact back swing, I think his real value in the shot is, one, the timing is impeccable because he's controlled the variables. But then his follow through allows him to get a lot of much more control than a lot of players can get because he's so controlled in the front end.

He uses his footwork so well. He gets the timing down. that's why he's able to consistently hit that middle bar. I think he's got extremely accurate shot off that one timer from a variety of different passing angles because of the compact motion of the front part of the shot, which most players don't do. And it's a unique part of the way he executes it consistently. I think it's brilliant.

And it is almost like a starting point from a player development perspective on a one-timer is that particular shot. And that's how we viewed it. because like I said, it has so many cool characteristics to it. What do you describe? Sorry, I forgot the name of the pie where he takes a shot from? Low pie. So it's just low pie.

So it would be described by the bottom hash mark, interior hashmark, to the dot, to the outside hash mark, bottom hashmark, or sorry, to the dot and then straight down to the end board. So inside hashmark to the dot and then down towards the end wall at the bottom of the circle. That particular area is what I would call the low pie. Yeah, I mean, I would extend it even further. Like it's almost like he gets into that dead angle or even sometimes on the wall. Like you'll see kind of stand there just to get sort of in your blind spot as a defender and a goalie and kind of get lost there and just wait for that opportunity to shoot.

And you'll see on some of those like it's just hilarious because you very, rarely see players willingly stand there and then shoot from there as regularly as he does. He's really, I think, and I think it's by design. Like, I think he's maximized the full surface of the offensive zone. And I think you mentioned the compliment with McDavid and why that's important is it's kind of like a basketball concept where you, when you have someone who can drive the way McDavid can, you really want to space out, right? Because you don't want to congest the middle of the ice and just add another body

and you're standing there than a defender's with you. and all of a sudden the bodies are piling up, and there's so many more roadblocks and kind of situations where McDavid can't just skate as freely as he wants to. In this case, him standing on the border like that really just opens up that lane for McDavid to skate around and probe and do what he does best and then get the puck to dry saddle there.

And so I really like the way they play off of each other and the way he's incorporated that to kind of get the most out of that partnership. I think that's really cool. I think the other note that I had was, you know, Spore Logic has him at 114 scoring. chances this season in 49 games, which is about two and a half per game, give or take. And it's still top 10 in the league. But what I find interesting is that none of those shots were describing count or register

as scoring chances, right? Because a lot of modeling just looks at proximity or location on the ice you're taking the shot from. And so we're programmed to think, all right, a shot from this bad angle that far out of the net. That's not really a dangerous opportunity. You'll live with that. that's a perimeter shot for an opposing defense.

That's how you classify it. And in this case, I guarantee you that any team that's preparing for a game against Oilers when they're doing their tape study and when they're talking about, all right, what do we want to look for? What do we want to try to take away from them? This is like the first thing other than, I guess, make sure you stay attached to McDavid as best you can. It's make sure you know where Drysedo's standing and don't let him get that off

because it is a legitimate scoring chance, right? I would say he's probably scores on about 20 to 25%. of those shots he takes, which is almost as likely as like a breakaway for an average NHLer to kind of give you the context of how dangerous of an opportunity is. But I don't think it's really characterized as such by a lot of scoring chance data and a lot of expected goals models just because for mere mortals, it's not a very dangerous opportunity, but tricels the exception in that case. Well, the best players in the world are the best players in the world

because they're able to expand the nets and they do. things that are different and that's exactly him. He's found a place in which he can be open. He's found the shot that matches that space. He puts himself there with a reasonable amount of frequency in which a guy like McDavid can draw all the attention to him on the other side of the ice and then all of a sudden zip it over there and there he is. The other thing too is the further he goes back off the dot line. So, when you look at the geometry of it. So you've got the dot line at the bottom of that pie

is really, there's some optimal shooting aspects of that when you're on the dot line. And as you go to the cords, the goal line, it becomes the angles become a lot more, a lot different. But then when you start going further back towards the boards in like the back part of it, now you're really talking about really different types of angles. And that's where the,

type of shot and the ability to be able to adjust to passes and still be able to find, you know, be able to maybe kiss it off the far post, for example, or shoot it off the goalie and in because now you're not only you, you know, you're down and you're towards the goal line, but now you're further back. All those things come into play. And those types of players, player like dry saddle, the imagination of being a able to turn that particular shot into a legitimate scoring chance, even though it's not categorized, is that by most people, because most people aren't capable of shooting it,

and he has figured it out. And now it's a unique weapon to him. That's, you couldn't describe being a world class any better than that. That's what happens. Well, and I think as a component of sort of that catamouse game between shooter and goalie in the current landscape of goaltending. I think it's fascinating. I don't want to get too into the weeds

of the technical stuff from the goalie department. Like I'll save that for what I have Kevin Woodley on this show. But just in thinking this through, what I find fascinating is with the current sort of utilization of the reverse VH, right, and how we know the way goalies are moving laterally and what they're trying to accomplish, I think it's a net positive for them in the sense that it's almost like triage,

right? You're playing the percentages. You're trying to take away the most, the most immediate threat. But for a lot of these goalies, the way they're operating now, as you move laterally and as you're trying to kind of hug that post and take away the stuff low and lateral,

it's leaving room for like the top 1% of finishers in the game to exploit more often than I think they'd like. But it's kind of like you have to live with it because you're not going to be able to take everything away, so you're just playing those percentages. But when I think of a guy like Dreysaitel and his incorporation of this from those angles and when you see him how he can beat a goalie like he just did,

Connor Hallibuck there where I'm sure he thought he had sealed that up and then all of a sudden he still got through him anyways. I find that really interesting because it's almost like it's this 4D way of thinking of like all right what goalies are doing now and then how I can sort of exploit my skills to try and get around that. Well it's interesting because this shot really highlights something also interesting as it relates to goal scoring and that is shooting beside or by the hips of the goalie. So where the hip is and trying to get into that space is a very interesting spot because it's difficult to say you've got to use your hands you're not going to be able to move your hips into that space so when you watch tricyt

shoot from this angle many of the shots are like hip height um that go clear the pad easily clear the pad kind of in an awkward spot for the arm and in the hand uh and for the bully's hands but they're in like in that hip area when the goalie depending on how he's sliding or whatever there's oftentimes that area is is an expanded like that clip right there kind of gives a pretty good example of where the goal is sliding he's moving but because but his his hip is set is whole is is centered and then he's extending his arms and his hands so that space where his hip is that is an extended scoring space. And so if you can find that consistently, which Drysidal does,

you're putting the puck in a really awkward spot for the goalie to have to save because he's just trying to get over there. And like I said, his hip is anchored to the middle of his body. So the closer you get to the hip, the more space that you are finding where the net is. The further you come off the hip, and now you're getting into the legs and you're getting into the hands that kind of favors the goalie because the more that they get out, get their hands off their body, et cetera, it makes it a little easier.

So I think that is an interesting spot. And I remember distinctly working with a couple guys shooting. And that was an area not just in situations like these types of situations, but in other spots where they're looking to try to find the space around the hips of the goalie, which is a curious, a curious spot now, as opposed to like, you know, you would think from that shot space that he would need to go like by the goalie's ears and like up under the bar and all of that.

But you rarely see him shoot there. I don't know that he put a puck there this year. I think all the pucks or most of the pucks are in that hip level spot trying to hit that middle bar. Well, my question for you, you then is how, I think we've spoken about this in the past, but how as a shooter much can you sort of actually pick your spot and then by design go for it? Because I know what Lewis talks about from a goalie perspective, especially if you're scrambling or you're moving laterally in those spots,

you're out of position. You just want to make your best effort to cover the middle of the ice because most shooters are typically going to go there, right, increases your margin for error. You're not trying to get too cute with it. You're just getting the puck on net. I imagine it's an entirely different calculus for a guy like a Matthews or a dry sidle because they're so elevated in terms of their their pinpoint accuracy and what their ambitions are as a shooter that they can kind of go for it a little bit more even if that means occasionally missing the net but how much of it like goes into that in terms of actually trying to get it in that one specific spot every time versus just hammering it and getting it on net well we talk about windows more than a specific spot so

there's some automated windows from certain locations that you would want to look at because it would give you the highest probability to score. And so it's less about picking a spot and more about there are certain windows in certain situations that are most more advantageous and give you better percentages. And so players would have some automated windows that they would be looking to shoot for. Particularly as it relates to shots off the pass, which are, there's so many variables to a shot off the pass that you can't control, the weight of the puck, where the puck is going to come.

You oftentimes have to adjust to the puck. So it makes it much harder to just pick a spot and like, this is my spot or whatever. Plus, you're so focused on the pass. You know, you probably did a pre-check look at the net, but then as the pass is coming, you're not looking at the net. You're looking at the puck as it comes. And so there's a lot of parts off the pass. that are harder. So that's where those automated windows, I think one of the best examples of

automated windows in shots off the past that has ever had in history is, is Ovechkin. When you go back and you trace his shots and also another guy to really watch with that is Stamco's. Stamcoast is another guy, I think that is brilliant in his ability to shoot in windows. and the number of times that Stamco's hits the middle bar is frightening. And he hits it about halfway up the net. It's pretty fascinating. So, yeah, I think players who shoot off the pass typically have areas of the net that they know, windows of the net that they know that are going to be a problem or harder for goalie.

And then they are looking to shoot to those windows. A guy, an on-stick shooter, like a Matthews, he has a little bit more of a situation where he can really pick a spot because it's on-stick. He can make choices. He can be manipulative. He can do things to influence and expand the net because the puck is on his stick and he's taken away a lot more of the variables that come from shooting off the pass. Well, that's why it was so interesting watching Troy Saito at the All-Star Skills Competition. Obviously, it's a gimmicky event. It's an exhibition.

It's totally different than game. But I think part of what makes him special as its ability to control a lot of those variables and still make the right shot in that sense, whereas all of a sudden you completely dumb down the exercise from, all right, here's a clean pass with no defensive sticks, no traffic, no goalie. You just have to shoot it. And he's still obviously remarkably good. But it almost takes away a bit of what makes them special in an in-game setting.

And I think that's what makes it so cool. I mean, his efficiency as a shooter, Daryl, I think we spoke about this with, with Miko Ranton and similarly, like, it's unfair that someone at that size can have two such unbelievable gifts as a shooter and as a playmaker, and we spoke about that with Rantanin. But in this case, last six seasons, here's tricycle shooting percentage, 21.7, 19.7, 18.5, 19.8, 21.1, 18.4 this year, while scoring at a 50 goal pace over those six seasons. And this isn't like, Alex Tangay, where I remember in his prime, he would shoot like once a game when it perfectly suited him and he was a 20% shooter. It's like, man, this guy is so efficient. This is on

much higher volume and much higher degree of difficulty that he just does it every year. And so I just wanted to shout out that efficiency because we often speak about how, you know, how hard it is to score in the NHL and how many shots you wind up, not wasting, but how many shots are just not going to be able to go in because the math doesn't check out. And he's almost broken that, right? Like when you see someone shooting 20% in a season, it's like, all right, this guy's, this guy's getting pretty lucky, he's on a heater, I'm expecting a bit of progression. And that's just been his status quo for six seasons now.

Well, I think what that speaks to more than anything, I think it speaks less to his shooting and more to his passing and playmaking mind. because when the shot is not there, he can adjust and go into a catch that might lead to improving a play for someone else. So when you're not as gifted a passer and don't have the same level of poise as this guy has, you may not be as judicious about the shots that you're taking, where he might, if the puck is not exactly what he's looking for, or what have you, he can not shoot that puck

and turn it into or try to find another scoring chance where other people are like, any puck that comes anywhere remotely near me, I'm pretty much going to shoot this. And I think that his shooting percentage is more of a reflection of his belief in his passing ability. And that that's what makes him more judicious about the shots in which he chooses to actually shoot.

Well, then let's get into that. We've kind of, we've hinted out a little bit. Let's speak about the passing then because you noted it off the top his ability to make plays when contested in traffic, you know, using that frame to protect the puck, survey, probe, get the puck. I think, I mean, clearly it's it's the passing off the back end, right? It is remarkably special. I would say it's Kuturab and him and then pretty much everyone else,

particularly when passing the puck sort of fearlessly. through bodies and through sticks, right? It's one thing to, I think, make like a crisp pass when you have a tape-to-ta-ta-ta-ta-tap opportunity. Well, you'll see him in terms of his attempts where he's trying to get the puck into this short window through three sticks in a congested area and still get it there. And it's a no look backhand that he whipped at full speed. You know, I think that's remarkable. And that's obviously what stands out. And I think that also allows him, you mentioned that kind of how that accentuates the shooting and gives him other options.

I think it also speaks to why he's able to get the puck in these unique places in the middle of the ice as a passer because he's not limited to just making one type of pass, right? He's pretty much got every single option in his bag when he's trying to distribute. Yeah, what I like about him, we talk about it initially is that you can't rush him into a pass. He's going to pass when the pass is right to pass. And if it's not there, he'll extend the possession and find the next window to make pass in, which is incredibly difficult to play. against. You usually have to bring multiple people. If you really want to rush him, you've got to have to bring multiple people, which then creates a whole other host of problems. What I also love about him is he passes. He's like a master of weight. What I mean by that is

the weight he puts on the puck. Like there's a lot of people, and we've talked about this before, it's like they just pass it way too hard. And he doesn't do that. He passes it appropriate to the situation for the guy on the other end. It feels like the pass comes in, no matter how hard the passes, it comes in soft for the guy that gets it. Like how many times when we watch his video, do you see a pass from dry sidle that rolls off the end of the stick of the guy on the other end? Like it just, he doesn't seem to happen like that.

He passes it because the weight is proper that the guy on the other end can catch it. And that's such a talent, the feel for the feel for the puck, the feel for the situation, the feel for space, to be able to pass what the guy needs on the other end. Like that's the real gift. He's easy to catch a pass from. And I think that that's fascinating. The other thing that he does is he passes brilliantly to handedness. You don't, even on his, whether he's on his backhand, his forehand,

under pressure, not under pressure. if the guy is on the right, is the guy's a right-handed shot on the right side, he's getting the puck in front of him. If the guy's a left-handed shot on the right side, he's getting the puck in his skates or slightly behind him where he can handle it where he wants it. He doesn't, if the guy is a right-handed shot on the right side,

he's not passing it in his skates or slightly behind him because he knows that's not the puck. And he just has that feel and that understanding of where the puck should go. The other thing he does, exceptionally well, I think, is he passes brilliantly on angles. So he's moving one way and he's able to pass it on an angle where you can catch it. So he'll like lead the guy into the puck, which speaks to how well he gives you the puck and how much care he has in the puck he gives you is that he gives it to you also at the right angle. So he's not like passing it up to you in your skates or in a bad

spot. He'll wait, take another step and pass that then flat, straight across to where you can catch it at the right angle. And I don't think, and again, it's like these things stack on top of each other. So he has an ability to have a lot of poise because of his ability to handle a puck and his puck protection are unreal. So that gives him the poise. So now he can be patient. He can wait until the right pass comes. And then he's also then. He's also, has all the feel of the weight so he can deliver it when it's supposed to get there with the right weight so you can catch it and he can find the angles that you might need and he's willing to put that if he needs to put it in traffic to find that proper angle he can do that

I mean there's just not anything he can't do in terms of passing to get you the puck that you need and it's just it's it's it's an unbelievable talent that he has in his ability to pass punks, in particular when someone is draped all over them, to me, it's one of the more impressive things to see in the NHL. Well, it was interesting hearing you describe sort of the weight of the puck and

passing to the hand in this, because you really see that in a lot of these clips where I don't think he could deliver it sometimes better if he literally picked up the puck with his glove, walked it over to the player, and just dropped it down on the ice for them to shoot it, and he's doing this through traffic. And it's remarkable because

these aren't like little sort of soft passes that he's trying to feather in. There's serious velocity and intent behind it, but by the time it arrives, it lands perfectly and neatly for what the player is trying to accomplish. And the reason why I think that's notable is there's been a lot of talk over the past couple of years about, you know,

the Oilers potential over-reliance on the power play, right? And it's like, all right, that's great, but what about five on five? And I think his degree of difficulty this season has gone a bit underreported, right? Because I think a big reason for the Oilers success has been, And especially since the coaching change, they're splitting it up.

They're having McDavid for the most time play with Ryan Agent Hopkins and Zach Hyman, and they've been awesome together. But because of the way that's distributed, then that leaves a lot of minutes for Drysidal where he's playing with what I'd classify as inferior talents at this point of their career, right? Like he's playing with Evander Kay and Corey Perry most recently, but Connor Brown, Warren Fogel, nice players, but players who I think are being asked to do a bit too much. So a lot of these passes that he's executing,

it's one thing to pass the buck like that to McDavid because he'll be able to make something out of it no matter what. But his ability to consistently deliberate in places where some of these other players can still make a playoff of it is, I think, very important, a big reason why he's still had that success at 5-on-5, despite the fact that he's not always playing with the team's best winger. Yeah, and this is where when you talk about or you hear people say, well, like, a great player can elevate the people around him.

This type of thing is one of those ways in which they do that, is the way in which they pass a puck, the timing in which they give it. They kind of stack the deck in the favor of the receiver. You're getting the puck at the right time with the right weight. You can handle it. You're at a good angle. Now all you need to do is execute, put the puck in the net.

Like you're taking a lot of the variables away from the receiver, it allows the receiver to confidently go through the proper routes that they need to go through, knowing that when they need it, the puck will arrive. It's not going to come just a little bit too early or it's not going to come a little bit too late. He just has that ability. And that's one way when we talk about the responsibility of a great player like a dry-sidal. And in this situation, you've aptly described exactly what needed to have.

happen if they want to win is like it's very difficult to win with what like everything stacked on one line etc or over reliance on the power play when you have things more to your advantage you split these two guys up you force them to find different find success with other people and then they can come together on the power play or what have you but i mean that's what's going to be needed the distribution of and so to do that you you have to elevate people around you and dry sidles passing ability and McDavid for that matter is a brilliant passer himself. These two guys have the ability to elevate other people around them. And that responsibility is one, I think, that they take on as a real, you know, it's a challenge that they want.

And they know that especially now after having a lot of scars of post seasons that just didn't go the way they wanted to, they now see that this could be a part of the path to get to where they need to go. And I mean, you see some of this stuff that he does. It's amazing how well he distributes the puck to give the guy every opportunity to make plays on it. It's brilliant stuff. Yeah. I mean, and listen, they still have that as kind of a breaking case of emergency. You see if they've been an offensive rut, they'll put those guys together.

They'll little top line up with Hyman and they'll go that way. but he's played only about a third of his minutes at 5-15 this season with McDavid. They've split them up for the most part by design. And I think he's having a phenomenal season. He's set such a high standard for himself the past couple years, right? Like 55, 52 goals. Last year I had the 128 points with 60 primary assists on top of the 50-plus goals. But despite the production coming down a little bit,

and I think part of that is like he's actually producing a 5-15 more than he did last year. The power play has just gone from historically unparalleled to just merely really, really great and not playing with McDavid as much. I think those things have gone into it, but I wanted to shout out what a phenomenal season he's had under the circumstances. Any other notes on Dreisano? I think what I wanted to note was, and I think this is a good way to end it for me

because it accumulates a lot of the concepts we talked about. That set play, him and McDavid run, where he scored the goal against the capitals this year, but he's executed a few times as well, where he sort of cuts across and he comes to, He comes to McDavid on the half wall, and then he posts up on the inner hash marks, and he turns his back to him and then receives the pass on his back end, and in one motion whips it and shoots it and scores.

Not only style points is it really cool, but I think it also incorporates a lot of these concepts we've been talking about his ability to make plays in traffic, and you know, you can't throw him a bad pass and all that stuff. Like I just love seeing that. It's one of my favorite plays to watch. Yeah, putting himself at an availability that's, unusual that doesn't look like an immediate shot threat and then turning it into a shot threat because he has the ability to handle that.

And he has the body control, which at the end of the day, a lot of this stuff is it relates to his ability to play in traffic, his shooting, his passing, his ability to stick hand. All that's related and a lot of it is to the body control. And you see him catch the puck. He kind of pulls back off of it. He's able to separate his upper body from his lower body and make that play. It truly is. It's a brilliant play. But it's the unusual nature of it.

Who does that? You don't see that ever. That's what makes it so special. And I think that this level of creativity from guys at that level of play, that's what makes it so special. And that's why we love to see them because you just never know what they're going to kind of invent. And then, you know, all of a sudden it won't be lost. long before you see other teams trying to find similar types of shots because it is so unusual. It's a great scoring chance.

And it's awesome. Before we go, the one thing I did want to talk about a little bit more is the brilliance of his glide skating. And I think his genius in his skating is his ability to glide. And he, he, it's sometimes it's an active glide, meaning he's gliding. He's not striding, but he is kind of shifting his weight from one side to the other to gain speed or what have you. But I think his ability to glide, to maintain speed, sometimes gain speed is an underrated aspect of his skating. And I think it's something that he does exceptionally well and is a big tool he uses in a lot of areas of the ice that would go, like you say, like McDavid, McKinnon,

Barzell, like they're skating. It's so, it hits you in the face. Like it's not difficult to see and be impressed by the skating. It just blows you away. This guy is weaving in and out of traffic almost like a Mario Lemieux like where you're like, man, he doesn't even look like he's moving, but yet he's flying by people. And it's through his ability to utilize that glide. And I think it's, it's an area of skating that we sometimes.

really undervalue, we talk about crossovers, linear crossovers, ability to generate speed, change of speed, whether it's deceleration or acceleration. But this actual ability to glide and maintain speed and have that become a tactical advantage, it's massive. And this guy here, he's a true master of it. It's really one of his, I think, secret sauces that really drives his game. And it's interesting because I think to maybe a more uneducated eye, that would be used as a knock against him. Right.

I think some people associate this concept of gliding with like, oh, well, he's not going full effort. He's sort of, he's lazy. And in reality, it's actually, it's a feature, not a bug. Not some people. Me. I was underestimated. It took me a while to really understand what it was that he was doing to get there. And I like to think that I study as much as anybody.

And it took me a while to figure it out and really truly appreciate what he's doing. But that is a real secret sauce. And it is something that people can get better at, a glide. But you wouldn't necessarily train that. But yet it has so much value. And I think that it is something that more of us in the training world should be taking a longer look at is how, to improve someone's ability to glide effectively. Well, I love that.

A lot of really fun concepts that I think we got to do today, and I think we did justice to what a unique and creative and fun player, dry-sidal is, Darrell, this was a blast. I couldn't have spent my Valentine's Day here or work any better than this. Love doing these with you. I know the listeners love it as well. We're going to have you back on next week. We'll pick another player and we'll get back into it.

Everyone go follow, Belfry hockey. my only plugs are go on the YouTube channel, HockeyPedioCast and watch along with us. You can see a lot of these concepts we're talking about. And also the invite lake is in the show notes for the Discord channel. Hop in there. You can provide suggestions for other players you'd like us to deep dive and all that good stuff and interact with us there. So we'll be back with Daryl next week.

We'll be back tomorrow with another episode of the HockeyPedioCast. Thank you for listening to us here on the Sports Night Radio Network.