The Hockey PDOcast - How the Panthers, Capitals, and Hurricanes Won Their Round 1 Matchups in the East

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Thomas Drance to run an autopsy on how the Panthers, Capitals, and Hurricanes won their Round 1 matchups in 5 games. 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 Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey Pediocast. My name's Dimitri Filippovich, and joining me is my good buddy Thomas Drenz. Tom, what's going on, man? Hey, buddy. Doing well. A lot of fun games last night, some that we weren't able to talk about when we were deep diving on some of the Western series, as we do. So excited to get into the Reminders, the series that are already over. Talk about Marvel of a season for the Habs, the battle of Florida, which has become pretty lopsided. In fact, it's always been lopsided, really. Right? Like in that it feels like one side wins, in both directions. In both directions. One side wins decisively, unfortunately, every time they meet. The first year was incredibly fun, especially that game one

when Kutrov came back after missing a full regular season, and that game one was just like a back-and-forth brawl with a bunch of goals, and I believe Braden points scored late, and that one was awesome. But, yeah, beyond that, we had a sweep, and we had two decisive. five game victories by the Panthers the past two years puts the lightning in a bit of a strange spot, which I'm sure we're going to get to. Yeah. In terms of everything kind of circulating around them. But as promised, we're back with part two today.

And we're going to move our attention to the east. We've spent a disproportionate amount of time here while we've been doing these shows covering the West, I think for good reason. But we're going to focus on the round-wam matchups, especially in the East that have already concluded and been wrapped up, run a little initial autopsy kind of of what happened, how those series played out. And maybe if we're time at the end, we'll get into a bit of a bit of a coaching conversation as well.

Let's start with Panthers Lightning, though. I'll kick us off with this. You know, you kind of alluded to it there, the quality of the series. I think heading into this, most people had the Panthers and the Lightning as two of their top four to five teams in the entire league, maybe even top three. It was clearly overqualified to be a round one meeting. Yet at the same time, you watch these games. And it certainly wasn't quite the epic heavyweight tilt.

I think we were hoping for by any means. It really delivered only the one notably fun game in Game 4, right? Where both teams scored a pair of goals within 11 seconds of each other. I believe both set franchise records for quickest goals in succession in their playoff history. What do you attribute that to? I suspect some of it is a combination of familiarity with each other, right? They've played each other so much as in-state rivals, not only in previous post-seasons, but just this year as well.

They're both such good teams, I think, that sometimes, you know, you can see the positives when that's the case with, like, the final game of the Four Nations where Canada and America are just, it's just like the best players in the world going head to head and it's being played at such a high level.

But unfortunately, when you get into those situations, I think sometimes there aren't that many events and highlights because it's so evenly played, it's being played at such a high level that they're almost kind of taking away a lot of the things that would otherwise be available to them if they were facing an inferior opponent on that night. And then I think certainly a storyline in the series was the number of key absences, right? Yes. And unfortunately suspensions and kind of bad hits overshadowing a lot of this matchup where you get only 53 total minutes from Ben and Hagel in this one who was suspended in game three. Yeah. And they got knocked out of the series in game four.

Bjork Strip. by Ekblad. Yeah, Bjork Strand, certainly, I'd add Anthony Sorrelli as well, right? He gets hurt in game one, misses a good chunk of that game, guts through the rest of it, but you look all told. He played 53, 5-15 minutes in the series, was outscored for nothing. High danger chances were 167, Florida. Part of that was not having Hagle for a lot of him,

but part of it was also he was clearly physically limited himself and wasn't the same impact player he was all regular season. And then the nope, Bjork Strand. I mean, Ekblad only plays, what, 43 minutes in the series. and we'll miss game one of Florida's round two. So I think put all those things together, and that probably explains why these games weren't necessarily as fun or as juiced as you might have anticipated or hoped heading in.

Yeah, I also think the, yeah, so I think Hagle, Bjork Strand, and then a limited Sorrelli, that takes a lot of dog off the table for the Tampa Bay Lightning, right? They're so reliant. I mean, look, Brandon Hagel was one of the best left-winger. if not the single best left wing in the in the NHL this year, you get as few minutes as they got from him over the course of the series, 34, 5 on 5 minutes, right?

Only Luke Glenn Denning played less among lightning players that appeared in this series. That's pretty tough to take. I mean, that is honestly the equivalent, not that Brandon Hagels is good as Matthew Kach, but it's the equivalent of the Panthers playing without Matthew Kachuk, and I do think that shaped outcomes. And I think that part of the reason that it shaped outcomes was that this was in some ways the coming out party for Lundell, E2 Lusterayn and Brad Marchand, especially as the series went on, right? Especially Marchand, I think maybe a slowish start earlier on in the series.

But by games four and five, that line I thought was the difference in that series. In the series, I think it became clear. And I think the work that Lus Duranen did to put an exclamation mark on it, checking Kuturov the way he did, including really that final, like the nail in the coffin sequence is Kuturov, you know, curling, twirling, doing his usual maestro stuff on the power play. Was it late second period in that game five? And Lusirann did the most world-class job possible, just sort of staying with him, not buying it. He gets a stick lift in on Kuturov, which you never see. And place brings the other way it results in Canadian hero Sam Bennett, you know, scoring the go-ahead goal. That was, that was sort of, despite a really good performance from the Lightning overall in game five,

that was just like a deficit that they never recovered from. The first goal, too, was set up off of, you know, Kuturov tries to dance Listern and Listern. Yeah, he tries to put it through his gates. Yeah, he goes with the V, he closes, you know, closes it up, closes the hole, causes the turnover. both of Florida's goals stem directly from his yeoman-like defensive work. I mean, that's a real problem for everybody because this third line for the Panthers can absolutely break a game open and, you know, I think what we saw in this series can absolutely shut down some of the best of the best in this league. And that's without getting into like the line with Sasha Barkov on it or the line with

Matthew Kach on it and Sam Bennett. I mean, this is a scary, scary team. Yeah, the depth disparity in the series, especially with those absences and guys being limited, clearly wasn't the way it was billed heading in where I think, based on the regular season, you would have thought, all these additions and how well that second line had been playing for Tampa, they actually have a chance to compete compared to last year where it was just a one-line team, and that didn't really play out in this series. I did think, you know, as a silver lining for the lightning, I thought both Gonzalez,

who had four points in this. I think he was tied with Kuturo for second on the team and our guy, Conorkegee. Yep. Who really flash some playmaking chops right earlier on the series. he had that one play where like he's kind of high in the zone on the wall, cross-hice pass for a great one-time chance. He helps set up a goal in this one for Nick Paul with, I mean, first just shows off his raw power and speed,

bringing the puck in the zone, setting up the initial shot, and then pokes it away, gets at the Paul. So I thought, you know, those are bright spots in terms of looking for players who can contribute for the lightning into next year and beyond because those are going to be valuable assets. It just wasn't enough. I think the Circushev trade is going to be a winner for the lightning. I think it already was over the course of the season.

but certainly when you think about what J.J. Moser was able to accomplish over the course of this year and what Connor Geeky flashed in moments as still a young player coming into his own. I mean, I think he's going to be a horse. Like, I think he's going to be able to play with the doggedness required to be a contributor on this Tampa Bay Lightning team, but with a level of sort of physical uniqueness and assertiveness that, you know, I mean, Nick Paul's got some of it, but that's not the defining quality of what they get out of Hegel and Point and Sorelli, right? It's the work rate independent of the size. If you get a guy like geeky who can do that but also offer you a little bit, not more offensively,

but that package in a larger frame, I think that's a really exciting prospect for the lightning going forward. And sort of brings me to this kind of last point, which is, you know, I know everyone's going to be wondering about Cooper's future, especially because, he only signed a one year extension and fair enough i mean there does come a point where change is not a bad thing or not a thing to be feared but i do think we need to like definitively and i want to put this in all caps and underline avoid the temptation of doing the lightning's window has closed where do they go from here they don't measure up to the panthers and there's no path to getting back there um you know i think this lightning team should be absolutely stubborn about

banging their head through a wall here. I think there was one team that could have done this to them in the entire Eastern Conference. I think we kind of forgot a little bit about just how ridiculous this Panthers team can be when they turn up, which, you know, look, they've made it to two consecutive Stanley Cup finals. I don't think we saw them play with that level of intensity or focus all regular season, and can you blame them, right? Like, why would they? Yeah. It doesn't matter for them. And now it does. and their, you know, top speed is pretty much the highest in the league. And you've been on that all year. Yeah, I was going to say, some people forgot, not over here.

Not up in here. Yeah, and they served up a reminder that is impossible to ignore against that Tampa Bay Lightning team. I think it's really important that the Tampa Bay Lightning, as they sort of reflect on what happened, you know, I think acknowledging the uniqueness of how difficult a first round draw they had and really sort of understanding that this is still, I think, one of the three or four best teams in the East at least. And, you know, I can make the argument for second. With the injuries that befell them,

with some of the young pieces they have coming that looked really good in this series, there's no reason for this Tampa Bay Lightning team to do anything, but continue to charge headlong into the, you know, Lesneed, F these picks of it all and sort of keep doing everything possible to grind out one more, one more deep, run out of this like headman Kuturov axis. Yeah, I can see why it would be internally frustrating or demoralizing, right? Because this is now three straight round one exits.

I believe the stat is their one and nine in their last 10 playoff home games. Right. And Kuturov has some ugly playoff. Yeah, and you've kind of bumped into a ceiling here in terms of this matchup. Yeah. I think specifically now, if the roadmap is slightly different, we're probably having an entirely different conversation here. Or if it's the Panthers that are dealing with the absences.

Right. Right. I mean, you know, and not on defense. It's not enough to be, because, you know, I like one other, one Panther storyline beyond the Lusteraynan part that I do think we need to talk about is, you know, you lose Echblad twice for two different suspension stretches in this series. Seth Jones and Gustav Forslings looking pretty damn good. Nate Schmidt killed it. I mean, another year of the Panthers getting huge back end goals from a guy who was bought up. out by another team, another Canadian team, right, the previous season, this model, this,

this like plug-in play on defense that they've got going. And then obviously the big swing they took for Seth Jones, I mean, those look like brilliant. More, more doubles and triples from Bill Zito, I think we saw in this first round. I'm not ready to move past Listerinen, though. I want to talk more. Good. Because I thought the E2 Listerinen trademark close-out game in game five was quite a sight to behold. He had the four points. As you mentioned, the couple steals one-on-one against Kutrov. You look for the series, and obviously that line with Hamlundel and Marsha, and is so deeply overqualified to be a third line. Certainly, but they played 47, five-on-five minutes as a trio up for nothing in the series. I thought Lusorynin was incredible,

especially. He's such a dog. He is just such an unmatch work ethic. I know he's been kind of plagued with a lack of finishing touch. at times throughout his career. But man, his work as a puck pursuit, puck retrieval demon is nearly unmatched in this league. And you look ahead as like a 26-year-old making $3 million for the next two years. I think he still has, just because of the way the Panthers are constructed, he doesn't even need to be asked to do this.

But say the San Bennett asking price becomes overly exorbitant in the offseason. I think there's a realistic scenario where Lusterian can give you legit third-line center utility as well if you want to bump up Lundell into Bennett's spot with the way they have when Bennett's been suspended in the past in the postseason or hasn't been available in the regular season and so that's an interesting wrinkle for the series Lus Serenon 5 on 5 minutes up 7 or nothing with a 60% expected goal share and you know this lightning power play really struggled in the series I believe they converted on their first opportunity the series and then didn't until the second period of game 5 they only scored two goals with the man advantage all uh in all five games

And he was out there for 15 of those minutes. Like he's a PK dog as well. You mentioned Marshan there. And it was almost a vintage game five, Marchand performance, right? Like that play four on four where he's just holding on to a puck, curling around, weaving around defenders, sets up the cross-ice,

Sam Bennett scoring chance, which he rings off the crossbar that would have put the game away there before it really did. I thought he was incredible. He was just annoying people as well at the end, like just got to Eric Chernak out of frustration and it was just he did he hit all the notes of a of a brand marshan experience in this game and that line is is incredible and such a weapon I think for paul maurice to leverage right because this isn't one of those situations where you have to necessarily

preoccupy yourself with making sure barkov is out there against the other team's top line because if you get in these spots where it's like all right well these guys are out there instead I feel pretty confident they're going to win and then all of a sudden now they're going to flip the ice put you in an advantageous territorial position, and then Barkoff and Reinhardt come out, and they can cook a little bit more offensively. And that's just unlike how most teams are constructed, where you're so one-track mind in terms of these matchups

and guys having such limited utility, these guys, because they're so overqualified, can kind of do it all for them. Yeah. The level Luster-Reynins hit as a defensive winger makes me want to see a match-up. You know, and maybe it's if we get the McDavid Panthers rematch in the Stanley.

the Stanley Cup final, but makes me want to see a matchup where the Panthers are so pressed at the top of the lineup that they have to bump Listerane and up to play with Reinharton-Bark of, just because I want to see that. You just want to see the other team never have the puck? I want to see the other team never have the puck. Like, I want to see what it would look like with sort of two of two guys that at this point I look at and think, man, who are better defensive wingers in this league than those two? Like, I'm really hard pressed to come up with one.

And what's funny is, if there's anybody, it's Hagle. Like, it's the guy on the other side of this series. I think where things get really tough when you consider what this all means for the lightning, right? As you look at, like, the head-to-head minutes between Point and Barkov were a win for the lightning. They outscored, like Point outscored Barkov in their head-to-head minutes five-on-five. Bennett versus Sorrelli, Sorrelli being banged up, is two-nothing for the Panthers. So that's a one goal split at five on five in terms of the top six matchups favoring Florida. And it's a five game Florida win.

Yeah. And it's just like, you know, if you're not, if you're legitimately hanging with that ridiculous Bennett Kachuk, Reinhardt Barkoff, top six, and it doesn't come close to mattering. I mean, that is, again, I think not just from a lightning perspective, not just from a, wow, this is a discouraging result, but from a what this means for the way. winner of the Toronto Ottawa Senator Series. I mean, you know, gulp, right? Just gulp. That's a scary, scary prospect. I mean, what they do to you defensively is just

so, is so nightmarish, right? Like, they were facing a lightning team here that obviously wasn't at 100%, but it led the league in scoring in regular season by by scoring the most goals. And they just, they're so good at taking away not only your time and space, but also taking

away your primary mode of attack or what you ideally want to do in any given circumstance. Like they held the lightning in this series to 112 shots on goal in five games. That's an average of about 22 per game. The lightning were at 29 in the regular season. They gave up just 47 high-angered chances in those five games. You mentioned Kucherov and his performance.

He has the three points in game three with a couple brilliant playmaking setups, but otherwise one total point in the four other games. Mike Kelly from Sportologic had this stat where in the regular season Kuturov had averaged about 3.9 slot passes per game, right? He's one of the best guys of getting the puck off the wall into the middle of the ice for guys like pointing Gensel to do their thing. And that got limited and brought all the way down to 1.5 slot passes per game in this series.

His offensive zone puck on stick time got cut by like 30% compared to his regular season standards. No goals, seven shots, a goal in five games for Kuturov. Gus Forsling was out there for 41 of the 76 minutes. played and I also I want to shout out the this kind of defensive gambit that Florida's executing right because there's every team has certain things they're willing to give up defensively and and if they can hold you to that they're going to feel pretty good about their chances we talk a lot about how Vegas packs the middle and keeps you to the outside and is very content allowing you to tire yourself out with point shots and dancing around the perimeter this panthers team is slightly

different because obviously they pride themselves so much on puck pressure. Yeah. But they also have Bobrovsky who has his strengths and weaknesses. I think you and I have generally during this postseason era for the Panthers been a bit more critical of his play than maybe the consensus or the way he's talked about on broadcast. But one thing he undeniably excels at is staring down shooters one-on-one on high danger chances, especially in tight because he's so athletic and just throws technique out the window.

And he had that remarkable. Not only I think the initial save on Chernak, I believe, but then the follow-up as well. Kind of just throwing all technique out the window and just being like, I'm going to backyard style just like just dive around and make these crazy saves. And so all of a sudden, like that's what they give you a couple times a game. If you convert it, you probably will have a better chance. But he's as well positioned as any goal in the league to make those saves. And then otherwise you're not going to get anything else. And we saw that.

There was just no volume here, no space. The hallmarks of Tampa, especially off the rush are kind of these like sneaky delayed entries where they, switch sides of the ice and then stretch you out that way and with their sticks and pressure, none of that's really available to you either, right? And so you really have to dumb down your offensive approach against them. You're not going to complete two to three successful passes in a row when foresting and barkov were out there with their sticks denying everything. And so it's just, it's, what they did was incredible, I thought. And it was a whole total team effort. And so full marks for them and this. And yeah, they got through in five. I'm going to feel very good

about the chances moving forward regardless of who they play because they're just going to pose so many problems that no one aside from McDavid and Dreis Heidel kind of going nuke the way they did games four to six can really provide. They are at a point where their stress hockey approach without the puck, their ability to make their opponents earn every inch. And I mean, even like the two steps on the other side of your own blue line, you're starting to feel pressure, you're starting to have to make really difficult plays if you're going to move the puck up ice with possession just to advance the puck into the neutral zone,

right? Their stress hockey approaches at the point where it's, I think, eclipsed, even what Carolina does. Like, I honestly think they have, they are the best stress hockey team, even if we happen to associate that type of down ice persistent pressure with Rod Brindamore. But, they have the personnel, I think, too, to generate more. And I think they have the personnel to be a little bit more tactically malleable. And not that Carolina can't get there in time, but right now anyway, they're like, it's like the Carolina hurricanes away from the puck with a top three offense on it. And that's a totally different equation. I mean, I don't know, I don't know how you find an answer for that.

I love, that's not Connor McDavid on home ice. I love the game in particular that Ray Ferraro was on the call for ESPN for at least one of these games in his series because he did such a good job of highlighting like the tactical differences in terms of Tampa really just wanted to get the puck into the middle of the ice and have space to move. And Florida was just having everything along the walls. Yeah. And just like keeping it there. And then they're so, so good at winning those battles. But as soon as you try to set in into the middle, there's an awaiting stick. and then they're countering the other way and getting a rush opportunity.

And it's the positional discipline up and down the lineup, right? Because it's not just Barkov. I mean, Barkov is literally never on the wrong side of the puck, which helps, especially when that's like the guy that everyone has to follow. But Lusteraynen plays that way. Lundell plays that way, right? Bennett plays that way. Reinhardt plays that way.

I mean, you go up, Lusteran lives that way. Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, you just watch these teams. you know, try to enter the zone or try to just dissect the Panthers through the neutral zone. And the amount of bodies, and you'd call it cheating except it's that they're cheating for defense. Yeah. The amount of the amount of play is just taking away the middle of the ice with like subtle, positional choices, forcing guys along the wall and then having desurf to sort of meet them there.

I mean, and meet them at the red line and meet them at the blue line. and the layers that you have to go through, just to forget entering the zone with speed, just to get down ice. It looks murderous. Like it looks like such a miserable time for puck-carrying teams. Hard to find a team, too, that is better at this. I mean, Winnipeg is like the only team that I'd put,

I'd say is better than this than the Tampa Bay Lightning. That's sort of like, you know, that intricate team level moves with a mix of like gritty battle winning and skilled spatial problem solving all at once sort of put together in a thoughtful way to attack as a team and they couldn't do it consistently at all in this five games.

I mean, they just didn't go for you. We spent so much time and, you know, there's been a shift in the league, I think, in terms of like particular individual skills or player types and skating ability is still going to be, I think, King with the pace that the games are being played at. We've seen a bit of a return to form

in terms of like size and physicality, especially in the postseason. because teams have gotten smaller for the most part, especially with like the invasion of skill defensemen. And so I think a way to counteract that is to just bully them down low and kind of try to take away their legs and punish them that way. The hallmark of this lightning team, though, and there's a bunch of them,

but I think it's the range. Like in hearing you talk about all these guys and Foresling, Barkaw, Lusterin, Lundell, Reinhardt, like they just cover so much ice with their sticks and anticipation. And so I'm to a point where I feel like range and sort of enreach and just the ability to smother you in that way is becoming such a distinct skill that I'm becoming more and more enamored with when I'm looking for players. And I mean, you're a guy Torbchenko.

This is a great example of that. But just more of that, like getting these mutants who just shrink the ice and just make you feel like you're suffocating against them. That's what the Panthers do to you. Yeah. No, that's a good shout. And I think you're right, especially because, you know, the underrated part of this arms race is that in order to survive, the big guys have become the fast guys too, right? And, you know, no matter how big and how fast you are, you're going to have a nightmare day. It's going to be a bad day at the office just trying to get through the way the Panthers play here. All right. Let's take our break here, Tom. And then we come back, we're going to talk Habs, Habs, Caps, and Devils Cains. You're listening to the Hockey Kest streaming on the Sports Net Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the Hockey Ocast Tom.

Let's talk Habs Caps, which is another five game series that the Capitals won. Their first series win, as I'm sure you've heard by now, since their Cup win all the way back in 2018. I believe they had four playoff wins in the past four years combined. They got four in this series, obviously, to advance. I feel pretty good. I mean, it was certainly more entertaining and eventful. And I thought the Habs, for the, the most part acquitted themselves pretty well, especially as a first foray into the postseason,

an unexpected entrance into the playoffs and not just getting completely blown out of the water and looking completely outclassed and outmatch the way we've seen teams in this position previously do. At the same time, the reason why I feel good about it is you and I did our kind of like key players draft right before the postseason as a preview for this year's playoffs. and when we did the caps, the guy I identified was Pier Luke Dubois. And in particular, because I thought that the head-to-head matchup between him and Suzuki and the way Carberry had deployed him this season in those assignments would determine the Habs chances here in terms of whether they'd be able to create enough offense

throughout the series with Suzuki out there and then what that would look like elsewhere. Here are the stats for you all told. 36 minutes and 37 seconds, 5-1-5, head-to-head, Pierluge Du Bois or Suzuki. In that time, shots 17 to 14 for Washington, high danger chances, 4-3, Washington, and most importantly, goals won nothing. Yeah. Washington, and I believe that goal came in the first period of game 5. Suzuki away from PLD, 41 minutes and 27 seconds, shots on goal 34 to 18 Montreal, high danger

chances, 17 to 8, Montreal, and the halves generated three goals. that's about as stark of a with or without you as you're going to see in terms of splits in a postseason setting like this. And it really magnified the HAB's lack of offensive juice elsewhere. When they had that assignment, the caps were holding it to a draw and winning territorially and they were very happy with it. And then they could decimate the HABs in all the other minutes. When Marty St. Louis was occasionally able to get Suzuki, especially at home,

away from PLD, it looked entirely different. The HABs had the POC were creating chances, scoring goals. goals. And so you look all to old, the haves just generated seven, five-on-five goals in these five games. And there just wasn't nearly enough offense elsewhere in the lineup. And that's really the story of this series to me, beyond all the other moving parts. And Tom Wilson versus Josh Anderson, the Habs power play, the goalies coming in and out of the series. That's what it boiled down to. Yes. Like the caps were able to execute their game plan of making life difficult for really the only source of offense for the habs and felt very comfortable in their depth elsewhere.

and we saw that play out where they got scoring from other sources. It really freed up the Strome line, I believe, strong than nine points in this series. And no one else had even more than five to do what they do, which is a lot of offensive zone starts and score. And on the other side, the Havs just really didn't have that luxury or a line that they could do that way. Yeah, that answer.

Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, I think this is an interesting one in part because the Capitals won playing their game. there wasn't a lot that we learned about this Capitals team over the course of this five game stretch in my mind they are big they know how to win that mattered in this series they're excellent defensively and Logan Thompson is good also Spencer Carberry is really good and so I feel like it's an interesting one because the team that eliminated their opponent in five in some way feels like the foil not just to our conversation about the series but to my experience watching it right

that the capitals existed as like a well-oiled machine in this series, a team that I was most interested in because they were playing the role of measuring stick against a team I haven't seen in this environment before, as opposed to really thinking about and digging deep on the capitals. I think we're going to get there once they're facing Carolina. It's just that for a capitals team that we expected to move on, that did move on, it felt, it felt, like this was an appetizer as opposed to a main dish. And that's a little dismissive of the Canadians, and I don't mean for that to be the case.

I'm just talking about how I experienced this series watching it and thinking about it. From the Havs perspective, though, I do think there were, like, one takeaway that I think would be easy to reach if someone heard you do that, you know, with or without you, Dubois versus Suzuki head-to-head. is do the haves need more from a top line center? And the truth is, as we discussed, like, talking about the head-to-head matchup between Point and Barkov in the

Florida, the Battle of Florida, like, it's not unusual for great offensive driver to come up against a Dubois type in the playoffs, and their team struggles to generate five-on-five. Like, we see that a lot. I do think that the middle part of the Montreal lineup is, sort of where the Canadians will need to be focused on upgrading because I thought Suzuki, especially you think about the performance in game two and three. And you think about what it looked like for him on home ice.

I thought Suzuki looked like a player, you know, absolutely capable of playing a first line center role on a really, really good team. I thought Lane Hudson looked like a, you know, creative player capable of not just running a power play excellently, but, you know, playing those major. minutes being the guy for a team in the in the toughest at the toughest time of year i was really impressed with kaden googly i thought kaden goolee had an awesome series uh defensively um you know we know that koffield's not going to shy from the moment i thought slovsky had those moments where his physical traits you know the uniqueness of that side of the game even if you have some qualms about

his like hockey IQ or ultimate upside you can see how that's going to be a difference maker for the habs if they get back here, you know, with the sort of like routine regularity that we expect. Like, he's going to be an impact player in playoff hockey environments. I want to shout out Demadov, too, who had a whole host of, I mean, that, that, the bumper chance that he set up late in that game five, that was a brilliant piece of work. That was Suzuki, right? He set it up for Suzuki. And so, you know, I don't.

think it's like the young stars that I look at. I'm not coming back from this series or coming out of this series thinking that they habs don't have the right mix in terms of young stars. But I do think the sort of process of grafting, you know, effectively the Lundell tier of guys into this roster is like still a very much work in progress that's going to probably take them some time to get right. Yeah, the problem is that they just didn't have a Dylan Strom and a Dylan Strom line with Ovechkin right in this series right like they just there was no offense elsewhere and i think you know it's going to be imperative that they also use this season and build pragmatically off of it as well right i think the needs are pretty clear in terms of like a second line center

who can drive offense yes so that's not entirely hinging on the Suzuki line i think on the blue line you mentioned hudson and ghouley there as well in doing so unfortunately marty st. just like fed Carrier and Matheson to the wolves. And Matheson has one year left. And he made a lot of mistakes, as you'd expect as well in this matchup. David Savard is retiring. And so I think there's an opportunity to him, by the way. Yes, an awesome career.

But I think was ready for retirement. And I think the haves are too. And there's an opportunity to improve in that spot as well. On the cap side, you know, you mentioned Spencer Carberry, a coach that you and I are very fond of. and has been awesome, and he's going to win the Jack Adams, should unanimously. This season, a great example of bald excellence in the league, which I'm sure appeals to you as well. First of all, how dare you? But second of all, you're right.

His extreme deployment to maximize his personnel and the depth of this team and get the most out of everyone's skills with their usage, I think it's an important point there. Because I don't think there's any coach in the league right now that's executing this in a more extreme and decisive fashion. You look at 5-1-5 in this series. Ovechkin was out there for 28 offensive zone draws and three defensive zone draws. On the other side, to make that happen and enable it, Nick Dowd, seven offensive zone draws, 29 defensive zone draws, and then PLD 16 versus 33 as well, right?

So it's pretty clear his intention in making that very evident in terms of how he wants to utilize these guys and then them coming through in the offensive. guys obviously scoring and generating and then PLD and Dowd and Dowd got reinforced in this game with our guy Alexi Proto making his return as well and I thought they looked awesome and give them another weapon ahead of this round two matchup against the canes the other thing I want to mention about the caps and this was very evident especially in watching game five I really feel like their rush game is a sight to behold now the volume was there in this series the rush chances according to sport logic or 40 to 26 off the rush for the caps.

But beyond that, I think their efficiency on them is worth hammering home for us here. The sort of intricate weaving they pull off, how they baited the defensemen to join them and then create space in the middle. There was that goal in game two or whatever, right, where Dylan Strom is essentially enabled to streak through the middle untouched for a breakaway goal because of how they kind of stretch you out and draw you and then create that opening. They're just so precise, the passing talent as well, right? I thought in game five,

Jacob Dobesh, who had to step into the series with Sam Martin Blubon and Hurt, was phenomenal. He made so many huge saves to keep this scoreline respectable. And that was just because the caps were just cooking with these two, three passes from the perimeter into the middle, cross-ice all of a sudden, and just getting grade A after grade A. I believe they led this round one out of any team that made it in slot shots created. They had 85 slot shots in five games in this series.

and so that's going to be a fascinating thing. We can do a little bit of a quick preliminary look ahead to Carolina versus Washington here if you want, but I feel like you're talking about how this was an appetizer and this matchup between those two teams looming. I feel like the respective strengths and weaknesses and the way this is going to play out actually makes it for one of the most intriguing possible matchups to me

because they're similar in some ways, but also wildly different and how that personnel is going to line up and the caps are going to have home ice. So I think Spencer Carberry is going to be able to dictate his preference is a little bit more, especially in games one and two. I can't wait to watch how that plays out. Yeah, the, I think the Ovechkin, so the zone matching with Ovechkin, I mean,

I also thought the way that he performed in this series, he had juice as a puck carrier. You know, the amount of respect he deserves having worked his way back from that brutal injury and what he looked like in February or January versus what he looks like now in that playoff series, Is he dunking on Habs defenders, you know, moves through skates, like legitimately manipulating Habs defenders as a puck carrier, not just a shooter, not just stationary attacking situations, but actually contributing off the rush.

I mean, the amount of work and discipline that he must have put in to get his body to the point where he looks like this today, given where he was five, six months ago. I mean, that's true Russian machine never breaks stuff. And I was pretty wowed by that. just that experience of watching him play in contrast with the experience of having seen him live in January. That, like, was one of, honestly,

one of the most impressive things I've seen all season from any individual player, and I'm talking about a guy who broke Wayne Gretzky's goal-scoring record this year. I'm almost more impressed by that. Yeah, how he looks, as opposed to... How he looks, just like, at his age, to have made that type of recovery and have this much juice at this time of year is,

I mean, he's one of the greats for a reason, but there's a lot of work. There's a, there's a story there in terms of what he did to get himself to this point. And I'm just like can't, I can't, I almost can't summarize just how impressive I found that aspect of this series. The question, though, I want to ask you really quick, the HABs having arrived ahead of schedule, how much of a risk does that pose for? Kent Hughes and Gorton, given that they did feel some high-end guys short in this series. I think quite a bit.

I mean, they've shown throughout their time there that they've taken a pretty long view of this and mitigation and I think built the right way. But when you get to this point as a franchise, you're generally swimming in an entirely different pool, right? Where there's expectations heading into next year, especially from the perspective of moving in the right direction of like stacking and building as opposed to taking a step back or missing the playoffs or losing again in round one in five or six games like I think there's a natural expectation of all right well you got this under your belt now all of a sudden next year you're

going to add more and that's a dangerous game because if you do so in a reckless way I feel like you can really do your organization of a disservice by limiting the future upside of it right kind of trading in future gains for immediate gratification. And we've seen a lot of organizations over the past however many years fall victim to that and be very susceptible to it. So I think that's kind of what I was alluding to when I was talking about pragmatic building here of addressing the actual weaknesses and bringing in guys who fit in with the timeline and the needs as opposed to just being like, all right, well, we got this season out

of the way. Now let's just go in this extreme direction for whatever reason. So yeah, I think that's going to be an important thing to watch. I just worry as well, like, when you think about stuff like, you know, getting paid to take on dismiss contract and then getting paid again for to Smith to Smith when you take on Tanner Pearson, getting paid to take on Monaghan's contract, he has the devastating injury, you resign him again, you get paid when you trade him at the deadline.

Like the way that they leveraged sort of the value of being content to develop young players as opposed to, you know, being desperate or feeling the urgent need to win now, while sort of, you know, identifying the right coach, I think, and doing this right in terms of giving guys like Hudson and, you know, Suzuki, Caulfield on and on, Demadov, the space to figure out what they can do in the NHL as opposed to being too concerned about, like, teaching those guys how to win now, like, become stars and then let's learn how to win. versus the opposite. They avoided the Anaheim Ducks trap and sort of dovetailed more nicely with teams like Columbus,

who were also high on. And I think all of that's been exceptional. Like I think all of it's been really good. But then part of your reward for approaching things this way and for being willing to take a deliberate step back is, you know, those picks at the top of the draft. And you end up with Slavkovsky instead of Cooley, you end up with Ryan Bachar instead of Mitchkov or Ryan Leonard in this series, right, who was already contributing for Washington.

And I worry that you end up like the Kings with like the Turcotte-Byfield, um, Brand Clark calls where, you know, you've done a good enough job rebuilding that you still launch back up the standings, but that next step, that next sort of elite step, uh,

maybe alludes you because the, the, the elite talent at the top of the draft, you didn't get like, you hit like a 75th. You didn't optimize. Yeah, or you hit like a 75th or 60th percentile outcome in terms of the return from those picks versus the 90 percent outcome that you probably need to be one of 32. And I feel like this is really interesting now because this team looks legit to me from the perspective of being a playoff team, but I don't know where that next push comes from.

I mean, you talk about they need like a star to see. Well, you know, that's a really tough thing to land. Where does that come from? How do they go about getting that if they're not drafting it at the, you know, apex of the draft where I don't expect them to be again, given how good a job they've done accumulating talent to this point. And so it becomes this really tricky balance, a totally new phase of their team building cycle for Gorton and Kent Hughes to manage.

They've been so efficient at building it to this point that I think you should and Habs fans should feel comfortable betting on those guys to figure it out. But I don't think it's helpful to minimize sort of the difficulty of taking that next step and the fact that it's almost more difficult because they've arrived ahead of schedule. I think part of that step might come organically from just getting a full season of Demidov and some of the flashes he showed here where he plays what seven, eight games down the stretch. and obviously just gets thrown into the deep end right away. And our conversation about them being in desperate need of secondary playmakers

and guys to take some of the pressure scoring-wise off of the Suzuki line, I feel like he provides an intriguing avenue towards that. So, yeah, I think the haves are near the top of my list of teams I'm most interested in this off-season or kind of have the highest leverage off-season. We're going to talk about the Devils Hurricane Series here. I'd put the Devils there as well because of whatever is looming for them over the next couple years in optimizing this Jack Hughes, Nico Hishio, window. You mentioned Ryan Leonard there, my quick kind of parting shot on this series.

He didn't score in these five games. He only had the one assist. I thought he was awesome. You look at his 515 metric, 61% shot share, 65% chance share, 66% expected goal share, 515. And he in particular, like his highest head-to-head matchup was against New Hook, and shots on goal were 13-0-caps in that time. And so if he keeps playing this, way our second straight show I'm referencing our pal Jack Hahn he did a great piece on his substack about kind of like um decision making through the lens of self-centric and that's like mac david and mckin where i don't care what you put out in front of me i'm so good at what i do that i'm just going to do it problem solving versus opponent centric which i think we saw from a guy like

leonard here in a more of a bit role where he adapts the environment in front of him so like whatever the habs are trying to do, his sole purpose is to play disruptor to that. Yeah. And so it's like these nifty little kind of picks that don't get called in the offensive zone, bugging you, disrupting, knocking pucks away, dragging defenders with him, clearing space in the slot for his teammates. And he did all of that. And for a guy, similarly what we just said about Demadov in terms of how short the runway

to get acclimated here was, you can apply that same thing to Leonard. He got a few more regular season games under his belt, but still coming from the NCAA is such a massive adjustment where you're the guy and you're, scoring a ton of goals, and now you're a third liner who has to get the details right, especially for a demanding coach like Spencer Carberry, and he did that. Yeah. And so I think that's incredibly cool. Well, and it, you know, in that frame, too, when we were watching last night, the 2-1,

it's 2-1 Washington, and there's that Montreal power play, and there's some excellent puck movement from, you know, Montreal's first power play unit, and they compress the zone and top of the, like, right from the Bowman line, Lane, Hunt. Hudson has a shooting lane and instead he passes it off and I think that was Caulfield for the one-time shot. It's a good chance and it's a dangerous look. But Hudson in that situation is the more dangerous shooter. And so that's too one of those things where, you know, part of this process as well is going to be or is going to hinge on whether it's Demadov, whether it's Slavkovsky, whether it's Hudson, like maximizing who they are. And I do think Hudson so,

exceeded my expectations this season. You know, he's really at a point where we were watching with our Havs fan buddy last night and he asked me, does Lane Hudson have like a Quinn Hughes type player in his range of outcomes? And going into this season, I would have said, I doubt it. I don't know that he's got that the skating. I don't know that he's got that sort of escapeability that Quinn Hughes has. I still don't know that. But he so dramatically smashed through anything that I'd think I'd have expected from him this year.

I mean, he, I think is, I think he was one of the six most impactful defenders in the league in his very first season. And he got so much better defensively at the end of the year versus what he was in the first two months of the year that, like, I have no desire to put a ceiling on what this guy can be because he's shown the potential to be special. Now it's a question of how special he can be. And that's, but I do, I do think, and I do think this in part because I saw Quinn Hughes go through this process. I do think part of the next level as a guy who can literally get wherever he wants on the ice at will is to elevate himself as an option, right? Is to work on that shot and elevate his shot in terms of a weapon, something he goes to as opposed to passing. And I thought that was a moment where, you know, not that I'd be critical of him for setting up a quality look, but from the perspective of how special a guy with the potential to be one of the best defensemen in this league, you know, in his sort of development and track record, I think like, you know, from the perspective of the learning to win for this Habs Young Corps and the value of this educational opportunity, I think that was like one moment where, you know, two years from now after Summers shooting 200 pox and adding some, you know, drag technique and figuring out wrist shots and really thinking about how to attack.

goalies as they transition. I feel like that in two years, if Hudson's the player that we think he is, is going to be an opportunity to shoot or a moment where, you know, he makes a different decision and we'll know sort of that he's kind of arrived or leveled up when he's making that play. I think we've seen a bit of an over-correction in the NHL in that capacity. Now, part of it, and Quinn Hughes is a great example. Like when we documented it here on the show, you wrote a great piece about this at The Athletic, his work with Daryl Bell's, free in the offseason and realizing that was where he could not only make the most individual gains, but improve his team the most through those individual gains.

And we spend so much time talking about how shots from defensemen are inefficient, how you want to especially work those shot off a pass movements, right, where a defenseman at the top of the zone, swing it over, get the goalie moving a little bit, let your forward get a one-timer. And in this series, you could see there were a number of instances, especially in the power play, where at the top of the zone, Hudson would pass it off and it would go to, especially with line A being out after game two or whatever,

to Caulfield for a one-timer. And I think that perceived as the right decision, but there's levels to this game. And one of them, if you're going to get into that rarefied error from that position, is stepping in to that shot, taking that ice, and especially if you're in the middle of the ice, right?

Yep. That's such a dangerous look because of all the tip and rebound opportunities, not to mention just beating the goalie cleanly from there. And so I think that's the next evolution or next step to his game. Yeah, not to mention the space that being a threat in that spot will then create for him as a guy who can beat a defending winger with a move or as a passer who can set up incredible plays. I think watching Hughes go through this process has sort of arriving on the other side as a more

impactful player, right? it's not that he's become more selfish. What's best for Hughes as an attacking player is best for his team. He is the better option, you know, in a lot of these situations. And his sort of ability to determine that value or weight that value of making the play versus taking the shot, you know, has elevated the Canucks or elevated the Canucks in his minutes because, you know, I'm not going to describe the Canucks as elevated. But I think Hudson, I think,

Hudson will go through a similar process here. You know, the ability to get anywhere on the ice is so valuable, and it's so valuable, too, for a defender as a shooter. And I did think there were some moments in this series where that side of his game, which I'm confident he'll develop, especially given his progress over the course of, you know, since his draft day, but especially over the course of this year, like I'm confident he'll get there, confident he'll develop it. But that's sort of what I'm going to be looking for from him as we sort of track the progress

of one of the most exciting young defensemen in this league. Let's go a little bit long here, because I do want to quickly touch on devil's hurricanes with you, just because we said we promised that, and obviously that's the other series that has been wrapped up out east. We saw a wild game five, right? The devils look like they were going to extend it. They go up three nothing early, and then they just completely flatlined. I believe Markstrom, who struggled during that time the hurricanes clawed back to make

it four four, made 37 consecutive saves, including like a number of just absurd right pad saves in those overtimes. The devil's just flatlined. I mean, they ran out of gas. They had 0.6 expected goals in the final 44 minutes of play. Shots on goal were 34 to 12 in that time. It was fitting that the series ended on a Hurricanes powerplay goal because the conversion gap and efficiency there was through the roof.

The Devils got outscored on their own power play in this series. They lost 1-0. Yeah. K. Goal to Marduk didn't score themselves. The Hurricanes converted on their opportunity. I mean, ultimately, though, like, it was pretty amazing when Jack Hughes left the lineup. that the devil's power play continued to be as efficient and productive as it was. I think without the Jack Hughes injury, that would have been the number one regular season unit.

But boy, oh, boy, is it different to do it in late April against Columbus or Philadelphia versus doing it against the league's best penalty killing team? You know, I did feel like it was one of those strength-on-strength matchups, but with one team losing kind of the source of their greatest strength, it turned into a mismatch in this series. I mean, the devil's blue line was decimated, and that's why I say they kind of ran out of gas. They were just dropping, like, flies. I mean, you look, Brian Dumlin, who wildly exceeded my expectations after being critical of that deadline at, played nearly 150 minutes in five games in this series and was quite good

in doing so. For the Hurricanes, I think finally being on the winning end of one of these 50-plus shot games is a very nice turn of fate for them. I have some questions in terms of, like, Freddie Anderson was awesome, as he always is, whenever he's available, he gave up six goals on 94 shots before getting hurt, and Kachikov was not quite as good. And so that'll be interesting because there's a lot of noise to his game. And we just talked about how the caps are so good at those cross-ice,

quick-hitting, efficient passing plays. Now, it's going to be tougher to execute that against the hurricanes, defensive pressure, and sticks. And getting in the blue. They're good at frasling their opponents generally. And Kachikov's weakness is a guy. Tom Wilson versus Kachkov. Yeah, like that's a mismatch of the highest order.

The rush game chances were 48 to 12 for the hurricanes here. And first off, for the devils, 12 rush chances in five games, you could really feel obviously not having Jack Hughes available. And Luke Hughes at that after game one, which is a relative weakness defensively of the hurricanes, and they just weren't really challenged there at all. The caps are going to do much better job of that. I thought the hurricanes, especially in that game five,

the passing off the rush, much more creativity and nuance, especially with the top six, compared to the straight line stuff we've seen in the past from them. And the last thing, Svetnikov's confidence. Because is he one of the more difficult players for you to evaluate or apply context to? Because obviously, Goose second overall, has all the physical traits, I think, is still regarded quite highly in league circles in terms of his potential impact. Yet it hasn't necessarily been there because of injuries and because of, I think,

the hurricane's inefficient offense in general. but he looked so much more decisive and assertive to me here. He was shooting the puck a ton. They kind of experimented with him playing with Aho and Blake as the top line and then bumping Jarvis to a checking line with Stahl and Bartnuk, which is a fascinating wrinkle against the cap's depth. And I wonder if they did that in part in preparation, because we talk about how these round one matchups for these two teams were sort of an appetizer

for a round two collision course. Yeah, and I think there was some preparation or gamesmanship involved there. But yeah, I feel like that's going to be. key because I until we see it I think the question is always going to be where the goals are going come from for the hurricanes I expect in that series it's so well set up to be one of those where it's like shots on goal are 48 to 22 for the hurricanes they're dominating and then people are wondering why the goals are actually three two for the capitals yeah I mean one of the most profitable things you could do I think as a as a hockey better is every year and every series that the caroline hurricanes

play at the start of the series on one of those sports books that has a buyout option, bet the opposition's goaltender for Khan Smyth with the idea that you'll cash it out like before a game seven. Like they don't even have to, because we kind of know what it looks like when Carolina loses. And when Carolina loses, it's often the starting goaltender that gets the lion's share of the credit whether they deserve it or not. And so I feel like that's a funny play that hockey better should be executing annually.

But yeah, no, I mean, I think a good test of Carolina's tactical malleability. I think one thing I'd sort of suggest is, I mean, Rod Brindamore has obviously built an impressive machine. Seven straight years in the second round is ludicrous, ludicrous. Like, who wouldn't want that as an NHL owner? From an owner's perspective, this is like from Tom Dundon's perspective, this is a dream. And yet I think, you know, we've seen it frequently over those seven years. the hurricanes come into these series and they play their own game. And I think there's a strength to that where you force teams to adjust to you.

But I also think there's limitations of it at this time of year. I think tactical malleability is important. And I think it's going to be important in this series, especially with Carberry's zone matching, especially with sort of how the capitals play and how they're set up, I think, to attack Carolina, for example, like at the top of the lineup. I mean, you go with Jarvis down lineup, you load up your top line. do you have enough answers offensively for what it's going to look like

when the caps can hard match Dubois against Tahoe, right? That's going to be an interesting wrinkle, I think, to monitor as we get into what's going to be a really fun second round series. All right, buddy, we're going to get out of here. I'm really looking forward to that. This was fun, as always, everyone go follow Tom's work, join us in the PDOCs Discord, where the people are saying they never want to hear you call a player a quote-unquote big hulking pooper-scooper ever again.

Well, no promises. No promises there, especially if... Especially if Yuel Erickson-Ek wins games six and seven with the wild against this Vegas team. Like, big hulking pooper scooper is here to stay. Help us out with some ratings and reviews as well. A bunch of people took us up on our request last time,

and each one's greatly appreciated. And thank you for listening. That's all from us today. We'll be back with plenty more of the Hockey Ocast streaming on the SportsNet Radio Network.