The Hockey PDOcast - How the Wild use player tracking to help make decisions

Episode Date: February 1, 2023

Joe Smith from The Athletic joins Dimitri to talk about how the Wild use player tracking data to monitor when their players need rest, prepare for opponent tendencies, and make roster decisions. Plus they talk about the team's 5-on-5 scoring struggles, and what they could do at the deadline to help fix that. This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty.  The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name is Dimitri Filipovich. And joining me is my buddy Joe Smith. Joe, what's going on, man? Hey, not too much. How's anything old with you? It's good. It's good also to have you on the show, remarkably the first time somehow after all these years. So excited to finally chat and finally get you on the program and get some good stuff. you've been writing some fantastic pieces of the Minnesota Wild and I'm kind of curious about the adjustment for you going from covering

the lightning beat for years especially for such a successful team winning all those cups and playing so many meaningful games and then jumping ship and moving on to covering a new team in the wild here yeah it's been great so far you know obviously at an amazing time in Tampa covered

the lightning for 10 years you know as you mentioned a couple Stanley Cubs and like you know four cup finals five covers finals. So made the summers go extra long on that end. But obviously to be cover a golden age of lightning hockey with those fans was great. But I think what I've enjoyed with the next chapter here is kind of having a blank canvas of stories that I can look look at in different angles. And maybe my colleague Mike Russo has done so well for 20 years. And that was kind of part of the the allure of changing beats and moving was kind of a challenging reinvigoration wherever you want to call. it and taking your, you know, your passion to it in another place, a really passionate hockey market in Minnesota, so which I found that pretty quickly here. So like you mentioned, it's been fun to kind of dig right in and build some new relationships with the players in the front office and kind of learn more about an organization I didn't really know too much about

until I started working in here. Well, that's a good segue for us. I really want to talk to you specifically right off the bat and we'll get into sort of the team performance and individual components of it as well. But the reason, the genesis for why we wanted to do the show together was you've written a couple pieces recently about sort of, you know, the off-ice perspective of how the wild sort of use information and data to make decisions, right? Whether it's watering, kind of rest and fatigue and the pros and cons of that and in terms of dictating how often they're practicing or, you know, from the analytics side specifically like player evaluations and trades and signings and all that. I'm really kind of curious for how how that all

sort of comes together and hopefully we can pull the curtain back a little bit here for the listeners and provide some insight in terms of like getting that glimpse because, you know, teams are typically so tight-lipped or shut off about this stuff. Like they're very careful about what information they provide in that regard. It's almost silly. Like everyone is doing some some sort of variation of it, but for whatever reason when you try to get teams or executives, to talk about it and they're acting as if they're like totally like it totally changed the game and redefining everything and doing some like unique trade secrets that they can't possibly share but I think you did a really good job of sort of kind of illustrating some of those things

that the wilder doing that might be slightly unique to them compared to the other 31 teams yeah I was lucky first of all being back in Tampa too they were pretty open with with access wise and kind of showing kind of neat back behind the curtain of how it works it is like a on the sports psychologist for the bubble. I did something on their analytics. You know, Michael Peterson, who won the pioneers of it. You know, followed a scout around for a weekend to see how they do that. So, and I was, I was curious on how the wild would be in their organization and they were open from the get-go. You know, I was curious since it's always perceived that Dean Everson and Billy Garon are really old-school type guys and just from what their backgrounds and their

playing career, and they still are in a lot of ways. But I was really surprised kind of to see how open they are to data-driven decisions and that kind of collaboration and quote-unquote new age way of thinking. And the practice one, the practice story you mentioned was just brought up because they rarely practice, right? And as a writer, that's when your most access points are to the team. And you're just, I was surprised to see how many times they canceled it, which is good for sometimes because you don't have to go to the rank. But you're also wondering how that works. And fans are like, why are they practicing? They just lost five to two. What's the deal? And when Deaverson mentioned and you know, talk to Matt Harder to respect to the conditioning coach and how much they collaborate with the data.

I was, like, kind of piqued my interest. And so I just got to sit down with Matt and look at the kind of the data and like kind of the program that they use first beat to chart the, you know, the heart rate monitors that they all wear for practices, for gym workouts and trying to find, maximize their effort without going overboard and kind of preventing injuries and preventing overwork. And so they get to stay in that best performance. things I didn't know about before. I know other teams do it, not just them, but I was just, you know, kind of curious how that worked and they were pretty open with sharing kind of even a detailed page of what a player's chart looks like on a game day. Well, I'm kind of curious for this then, like spinning it forward. I don't know. I think clearly they don't necessarily have the luxury of this for the rest of this season because it seems like they're going to be, you know, in a very tight playoff race of the number of teams, but taking it a step further, like a conversation that we've seen

really bubbling to the surface now in the NBA, for example, is, you know, the idea of load management and kind of like stars sitting out games. And the cons of that being, you know, if you're a fan, you get one or two chances every year to see a out of market star that comes to your city and you buy tickets well in advance and they're incredibly expensive for a lot of these families. It's like a once a year, once every couple of year of luxury. And then you get to the game and you realize the player you came to see is taking the night off and resting and how kind of crappy of a situation that can be, right? But a lot of these teams, from what I gather in the NBA, have mapped out well in advance, pretty much at the start of the year, even before the year,

kind of these like these spots in the schedule where they're going to intentionally rest their stars because they either have a, you know, condensed schedule, they have a bunch of games in a short period of time, or they feel like they can just get an edge that way. And we don't really see that in hockey, of course, right? Like, you almost need a limb to be falling off your body to be taking some of these games off. And I'm curious taking it a step further than it's one thing to, you know, cancel a practice and be like, all right, listen, the players are, you know, are in the red here. There's some fatigue concerns. We're concerned that we're pushing them too much and they might be at a higher risk of injuries. So we're going to take the practice off. I wonder if it would ever

get to a point where you would actually notice that a player might be struggling in that regard and giving them a game off to sort of get right. Like, I, it feels like, we're still a very far away away from that in the NHL, but I'm curious if that's sort of the next logical step of applying that information to actually sort of save players from themselves. It could be. I mean, depending on how overworked or what the person's, maybe it's more so based on injury. So like Austin Matthews sit out a few games for quote unquote minor injury. Now he's out for a few weeks. And I think, I don't know if the wild will have that luxury this year because there'll be up against it for a crazy playoff race in the West in the Central Division. But I've

I asked John Cooper a number of times when I was in Tampa because they would always have their play play playoff spot pretty much blocked up. Right now they're pretty much set in to play Toronto in the first round. It's two months away. And he was always against well management. He said first of all, the players don't want it. The players want to play. They want to keep the rhythm, you know, whether it's goaltenders or or players and they had that competitive streak. And also, too, the randomness of the injuries in the sport. Like you could wrestle a guy on Tuesday against Nashville and then plays the next game takes a shot off the foot and he's hurt too. I think in basketball there's more tend to be those muscle groin injuries that you would have

based upon quote unquote overwork or that kind of thing versus hockey where it's just that could be in tremendous shape and all of a sudden just randomness and like the bounce or a hit or this here and they're gone. So, you know, I think hockey might be different, probably be more of a slow adapter to that stage. But I do think in this instance, when you have a player who's dealing with maybe a nagging lower upper body injury that isn't. wouldn't in a playoff situation have them out of a game, it's a good idea, I guess, with them to sit them out an extra game. And also the cap is a concern, too.

If you have enough cap space to have an extra guy to play, most teams have an extra forward or defenseman. But I think that's another issue that my teams might have if they want to rest multiple star players on a certain game. Yeah. Well, it's interesting that you bring up both the Austin Matthews example and the former team used to cover in the Lightning because they're pretty much statistically locked to play each other.

in round one. All that's up for debate really is who's going to have home ice in that series, but it'll be fascinating to see if there's some kind of nagging injuries or nix and bruises and some of these players are sitting out games in March and April to get ready for that matchup. Okay, so there's that component of it. There's also, you wrote about sort of the analytic staff and how on the surface it looks lean, but how they sort of integrate some of this information. and I think most importantly, work in unison, right? Like, it's not a lot of the issues that crop up is every team at this point has at least someone on staff that is doing some of this stuff. But a lot of times it can be a situation where, all right, you have someone running the numbers or putting together reports or doing the work.

And then it gets passed along with the higher ups. And then they kind of look at it and it's, all right, well, this kind of goes against what we wanted to originally do. it doesn't confirm our bias that we already had in place. And so we're not going to really regard it. We're just going to go elsewhere. And it really seems like in this case, from the picture you painted, that the wild are much more in lockstep in terms of whenever there is a decision to be made, whether it's an extension, whether it's a player to target,

whether it's, all right, we're at a crossroads, should we do this or that? They're legitimately considering some of this stuff in helping guide the decision. Definitely. And, you know, our friend and my colleague, Shane and Goldman, does a great job tracking analytic staffs around the league. And when I saw there was only one person on there for the while, I think that's been kind of the fans have always kind of nitpicked, been like, hey, like, you know, why aren't we doing this?

Or why don't they want to spend the money or do this? And I just been around the team enough in traveling. You saw their analytics person. Matt Sell is always in the road. He's always with them, I run the coaching staff. And so I got a chance to sit down with them for a couple hours. really dug deep into his history with hockey Canada and how we got to the wilds and you know John Cooper actually pushed for him and come to Tampa and actually got a job in Minnesota

but yeah I think analytics are important and they're part of every team's fabric but they're used differently and in this case it is something that's used all the time in every decision that they make not an end-all be-all but it's a factor in their decisions right you know you want to have those conversations. And so he, Matt sells is in the coaches meeting, it's the day after a game. And they, you know, they'll ask is how to look at the numbers wise. What did you see? And, you know, ask how they, how to look hockey wise. And a lot of these things are based upon, like, you know, the numbers that Kail and Addison were bad or what we think of Kielnaudson, he didn't really play well. Although the numbers confirmed that he let these number rushes in off, off his blue line in

this side. And not only does it affect kind of, you know, light of decisions, like you can tell when a player is trending the long way, so you can kind of stop it from go another that direction and help them and teach them and show them clips on certain things between games where it doesn't get to the point where it's finally there. Same with the team. If the team is winning, but their numbers and below the surface stuff isn't good, they can kind of say, okay, well, we're winning, but we're not, shouldn't be winning. And this is what we need to work on in practice, all the way up to, you know, the free agent contracts, the extension for Matt Bully that they signed, looking at models and regression models and seeing what that can do.

So even talking to Bill Garon and Dean Everson, both old school guys, they've been open to it. Not a BL and all, but it's something that's really important that they factor in for daily decisions for good or bad. I really hope we reach a day where the disclaimer of it's not the BL and all doesn't need to be applied to this stuff. Because I really think like no one is suggesting otherwise, right? Like even my school who looks at this stuff, I'm also like the way to use it and the way I think any sort of, you know, respected or serious analyst would is you look at something, you identify a trend or you're like, oh, that's weird. And even sometimes, you know, Marcus Felino had a quote on your piece about how like, oh, well, if it confirms what we're seeing, like, then why not use it, right? And for me, it's actually

much more interesting when it goes completely against what I think I'm seeing, right? I watch a game, all of a sudden a player's performance or team's performance looks entirely different from what I've been watching. And then you go back and rewatch the tape or individual shifts of players and you try to sort of actually identify what's happening here. Is it purely an anomaly or something the numbers aren't picking up? Or is there something that just, you know, on a cursory glance when you're watching a million games every single night, you didn't pick up? And so sometimes it's almost more interesting to me what it pushes back against your pre-assistent beliefs as opposed to just confirming what you already knew because otherwise it's not that useful. It's like, all right, I already think X and then it just

proves it. So it's like, well, what good was that we could have just done without it at that point? And I think what they use a lot And what players told me that they use it a lot is for the pre-scout other teams, right? That's where they find the most value in it versus their individual numbers is kind of what the Anaheimbeks do off the rush. What do they do? Where do their power play chances usually come from?

Where are they good on dump ins and retrievals? Are they not? And those are things that they really part-been on the pre-game meetings after the skate. And those are ones that those always remember. So those are really helpful, I think, in any team for that pace. So I think that was interesting to me. And just how each how Matt sells is part of coaches meetings.

And it's not just he's up in the ivory tower and sending down numbers in a spreadsheet. And all of a sudden it's getting to some people, people listen, some people don't. They're actually having those conversations about it versus just, Bill Guerin never gets reports, never gets a bunch of papers and a right and a pamphlet. It says this is what it is. They had these conversations. He said, what do you think about this guy? we should be signed on what has you to look in three years and he'll give them the honest opinion that's how

it'll go yeah yeah and i think sort of condensing that information into actual actionable items whether it's for the gm or for the coach or for the player is is incredibly valuable and being able to sort of speak that common language it is huge right i think you had your point there about how matt is you know sort of differentiating between like all right you look at the raw numbers and that sort of tells you the the what of how like what like what like what happened on the ice. And then maybe you're looking, you're, you're kind of peeling back glare and you're looking at some of the tracking data that we unfortunately don't have publicly stelt this point that might paint or shine a better light on sort of the why or the how it

happened. And I think for players that, like, it's useful for them to know that, right, we're going to go and play against the Nashville predators today. These are the tendencies. This is what they do. But then I think almost being able to identify the way in which they're going to go about to do it is much more valuable from a player perspective because then when they're on the ice, they can sort of identify if they're leaning a certain way or they're doing a certain thing and sort of know ahead of time, like, okay, this is what I can kind of keep an eye out for and what I can prepare for. Yeah, definitely. I mean, the why is so important and an interesting conversation with Matt sells about it. And I asked them about what percentage of analytics or data is public versus

what teams have available to them through player tracking. And he estimated about 1% or 2% of analytics are proud of data for hockey is available to public. And he said it's incredible what people could do with all the sites that are out there. And, you know, my friend and colleague, Dom does great work with that too. Everybody, he sees like he really wishes that it would become more public, the player tracking, puck tracking, because he goes to be more collaboration, more innovation, a league-wide. And he said there's no reason for, just because we do it one way and another team does another

way it's all proprietary now because those things are kind of secret behind the scenes because they're puck tracking but he said he would be open to it being public and think about how much more the league can learn how much more teams can learn based on all the smart minds that are out there they're not hired by teams yeah the from what i've gathered the expected goals models in particular like wildly vary and and you know i'll fully admit i'm pretty skeptical myself a lot of the public ones because we've kind of transitioned past the point of they did they did a good job for a while of identifying like the geography of where a shot was coming from but unfortunately now there's so many layers to it in terms of teams like working the cross-ice action with the pre-shot movement and

incorporating all that to their game and and acknowledging that all right like as a defender how close you are to the person taking the shot is going to impact how good of a shot they get and none of that is is baked into our current data and so it's pretty clear that adding those sort of inputs as well is going to completely change the final result. And so on the one hand, I think it's much better than not using it at all. But it's pretty clear that there's levels to it and there is still kind of a way to go. So I'm really curious about how each team sort of navigates that. And I think it's interesting for me just as as a writer and for you too and like how much do you use it? How much do you use it based upon in your stories? Like how much I don't want to get

too bogged down into all the numbers. But I think there's numbers that are very useful. that can paint a picture or that can maybe be contrarian, like you said, all the team looked bad, but this is what the numbers actually showed, or this is what this line might look like they were hemmed in, but they actually had this possession time and all this other thing like that. So I think I grappled with that over the years, trying to incorporate more data into my reporting than I did before, maybe five years ago, but it's still a process for me, and I know for Mike as well, just to figure out how much do fans want. So there's certain fans who don't want a lot of that, but certain fans who will eat it up. And so you kind of have to find that balance

of which, how much to use in your stories you do with game reporting or features on a certain player kind of thing. Paul Russo is a big analyst guy. Everyone knows that. No, well, here's a great example for you. So Matt Boldie, with him on the ice, the season of 515. The Minnesota Wilde have 54% of the expected goals, according to natural statutes, right?

They scored 47% of the actual goals when he's on the ice. Now, if you're not looking at the numbers and you're just purely looking at his plus minus or just looking at just, only goal is being scored, you're like, man, Matt Boldie, like, they just gave him a seven by seven deal and they're getting outscored with him on the ice. What's going on there? And then you just, one cursory look at the odd eye shooting percentage and it's like, all right, they're scoring on less than seven percent of the shots they take with him. That's probably not reflective of

Matt Boldy's true talent level. I'm sure that'll come up. And once that does, a lot of the concerns, I think, are going to be alleviated and the perspective is entirely going to shift. And there's going to be some hindsight of like, oh, well, this was never an issue. But clearly, these fluctuations in things players can necessarily control themselves is I think a very valuable application of some of this stuff. And there's stuff like what their line mates are, they moved around a bit. Last year was Kevin Fiala. It was a pretty stay-limate for him for half the season. And this year, he's bounced around different people. Marco Rossi used to be on with him. And then in and now, I think Felino is with him. So kind of, you know, that thing's injuries,

like obviously shooting percentage like you mentioned. So, you know, I think, the deal will end up being a good one, you know, just from knowing why I know about Matt Boldie will be a good one. But it is kind of crazy to think about giving a 21-year-old that much with that, you know, that little kind of service time, quote, I'm quoting the H.L. So, but when you're in the salary cap world, you make those decisions and those educated bets on players. And I think maybe in a few more years when the cap goes up and all of a sudden he's a, you know, 25-goal score, then it won't be thought of as bad differently. Well, here's a staff for you. There's been a hundred and thirty-three forward combos.

in the league this year who have played at least 100 minutes together, a 5-15. Matt Boldie is not on any of those. I think the most common trio that he's been with is Freddie Goodrow and Ryan Hartman, and they've played like 90 minutes or something together. And yeah, I think that's a great point. Like I think, especially for a young player, having stability or certainty in your linemates, and not to mention the talent level of them,

going from McKinnell and Fiala to inferior talent level players, still grinders, but different skill sets is huge. And I think that's shown by the fact that, I mean, it's remarkable that he has one primary assist at five-on-five this season in 600 minutes. And to me, I actually think of him. I know there's like been a big talking point of like he needs to be more assertive and shoot more. And his shot rate is actually going up this year. But I actually think he's going to be a very good playmaker.

And I think that's just like entirely random. Like there's no way if you replay these 600 minutes that he ever has one primary assistant. It's like impossible. It's almost a it's like a statistical aberration that is just not. going to happen again. And so I'm not worried about him. I understand it's like, all right, well, his raw accounting stats aren't that great. He's played less than 100 games, but betting on the skills that he's shown so far to me is such a no-brainer. Like a lot of the subtle stuff he does, Joe, whether it's the like how much of a menace he has on the for check and just making life

a living hell for opposing defensemen trying to get the puck out of their zone or like getting the puck off the wall himself and making plays for others. Like these are things that I think everyone that plays with him is going to love playing with Matt Boldie because he just does these little things that help tilt the ice for them and put them in advantageous positions and so I have absolutely zero concerns

about him moving forward. Yeah, you watch the little things he does like he's just a smart player for his age and I remember talking to his coach at US NDP and they had that crazy good team, right? Was it Suzuki, Spencer Knight? Or call Paul Field, sorry, Paul Field. Yeah, oh, Zegris.

Yeah. Zegris and they were all like this guy's another level and the coach was like he could end up being better than all these guys and just chose a talent level and that whole team had but he was always a guy who always set up he was a playmaker he was a guy who always grew up as a setup guy and now in an age L he could be both

and there's nothing wrong with that as Marty St. Louis showed in his career too you can be both. Yeah yeah I think very bright days ahead and I mean getting him for age 22 to 28 seasons like everything we know about aging curves is those are going to be his most productive seasons And so getting that signed is a no-brainer. And it brings us back to the conversation of the team's sort of application of some of this stuff.

You know, you think that it would be particularly useful for the wild above any other NHL organization for the next two or three years, considering they're working with like 80 to 85% of the budget of the other teams. And this is where a lot of the good stuff has been mined in terms of working some of these market inefficiencies. and identifying bylaws or players that might be discarded by other teams for wrong reasons and then getting them at a discount price to help you. And, you know, they did a good job with Sam Steele, for example, bringing him in. He's provided a great bang for the buck so far. I think it's going to be incredibly crucial for them to find at least a handful of more of those

over these next two years while they are working at this sort of financial limitation. No doubt. Like those that's what moves they have to make. And, you know, or they have to hope the guys, that are on the cusp there, the Sammy Walker's or Marco Rossi's who I wrote about today, you know, can come in and play on actually level deals and be in impact players, not necessarily top line or top six minutes, but guys who can be able to be contribute for you. And they're an interesting spot to me because they have one of top prospect pools,

according to our rankings and the league. They have some talented young players under contract, under contract for a long time. But they don't have a lot of cap space at the deadline, too. They can make a big move for a rental. They don't have much the next year to go. They have to sign all these guys this summer. So that's where the trade deadline comes into a play where you can make a splash

at the deadline for a rental, but they have to be careful. They don't want to be giving up their first round picks and their top prospects when they're still in this kind of weird window where they are kind of hamstrung for free agency in the summertime. So that's a weird spot to be in, but they still

have a really strong core in eucalist, but they need I mean, obviously we would talk about, they need some they could use some extra help in the top six, is my opinion, and they can maybe use a little help defensively too, but those are hard to come by unless you want to pay up for some rentals. Yeah, I can understand. Well, I can understand certainly why they'd be reticent to move any draft picks, because if you look over the past four years of the way they've drafted, in particular since Judd Brackett came to run their scouting department, like, they've been one of the best, they've not the best drafting teams in the league, especially when you account for, like,

the slots they picked from, right? And so a lot of those, players probably won't be able that they wind up taking over these next couple years won't immediately step in and help produce on an ELC which is what they need but it's it's it's such a valuable resource for them and it's almost like it's one of their big organizational strengths and so to be to be kind of handcuffing them by moving those picks to help right now I understand why Bulgarian would be would be very nervous about doing that yeah and he and he's kind of said he doesn't want to do that he did that up and explain that there's also untouchables he has and the system, some of the top prospects, you can probably guess a few of them, from Walsat to

Faber to other ones that are, you know, that are way of the cusp there. So it's an interesting way to do it. And I'm curious to see what the market looks like after the Bo Horvad deal and other forwards that are on expiring contracts of how much they will cost if the wild go that direction. But in my sense, they'll probably do more of a hockey trade where you'd have a roster player going one way and getting a roster player the other. And we'll see what happens with that, whether it's a Jordan Greenway or some of their blue liners that can go the other way, like whether it's a Dumba or a Gologowski and trying to make something fit. Well, it's interesting. I did a show breakdown with your colleague, Carmen Dahl, yesterday

in the BDICS. We're talking about the Bohr-Bohrab trade, and at some point we brought up how Kevin Weeks had tweeted that certain NHL teams had basically come out and express their displeasure with the Canucks and not at feeling like they weren't like fielding fair offers in terms of, like, giving them a chance to match or exceed what the Islanders did. And I actually thought the Minnesota Wobble would have been one of them, but based on your reporting, you've been sort of adamant pretty much the entire way that they weren't seriously in on HORB. They weren't from the beginning.

I mean, I think they checked in initially in the fall. And I think the asking price back then was very high. And I think the fact, just the fact that it makes sense on a number of different levels, number of two is that they have, they can't assign him to a long-term deal, right? And that would limit, I think Lou LaMarillo has an idea of signing him to a long-term deal, which is why they might have given up more. But the price that the while would have to have paid for a quote-unquote rental,

I don't think it works for them. Like, well, Horamette is a player. I think he's really good. I think he'd be impactful player for a lot of different teams, but I just never got a sense that they were really in and hard on him and that as far as the deal is concerned. All right, Joe, let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we'll keep chatting with you on the other side about all sorts of Minnesota Wild related topics.

You are listening to the HockeyPedio cast streaming on the SportsNor Radio Network. Discussing the biggest stories that matter to Vancouver sports fans. Halford and Bruff in the morning. Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back here on the HockeyPedio cast with Joe Smith talking about Minnesota Wild. So, Joe, we'll talk about the deadline here in a second in some of the potential moves or, motivations for the wild. You know, I was watching the Hurricanes Kings game last night, and of course, the hurricanes came back and wound up winning the game in overtime, and the goal tending or goal

suppression in particular let L.A. down once again, which has been a recurring theme this year. But over the course of that game, Kevin Piawa scored a remarkable individual effort goal, where he came down the wing, toe dragged at a round of defender, and then went top shelf against Freddie Anderson. And just watching this year how good he's been in particular at 5-1-5 and how productive he's been and then the struggles of this wild team at that end. Of course, you know, their hands were tied in the sense that they were kind of backed into this corner and they had to make the move that they did. And I thought that the return they actually got for Fiala from the Kings was a very reasonable one at the time. But you look now, they're 27th and 5-1-5 scoring as a team.

And that is down from from second, I believe, last year where only Florida was scoring more frequently at 5-1-5. And now part of it certainly is shooting percentage driven, right? I think they were also second-in-shooting percentage last year's a team and they're down to like the 20s now. But watching this team, it's been quite, quite an uphill battle for them on a lot of nights to really get sustainable offense going at 5-1-5. And I think that has to be a legitimate concern moving forward. Oh, it certainly is, and I don't think anybody, I think people expected a little bit of a drop-off losing Fiala the talented he is, both individually and how he impacted Matt Boldie's game and vice versa. But I don't know if anybody kind of reasonably expected that kind of a drop-off five-on-five. Now, they've been just managed to survive it and find a ways.

Riesoff's been terrific most of the time. Their power play stepped in. Special teams have been better with the penalty kill. Their goal tending has been better than expected with Gus. of sin and in Flurry in the tandem, but you've got to see an offensive regression from guys who had career years last year, right? Ryan Hartman had 33 even strength goals last year. I think he has like four or five total this year. Right. You know, Eck is about similar to what he was last year, but Felino's way down. You know, so you're looking at different guys that had

big time years last year at five on five especially. And the whole thought, I guess, from the wild perspective is if these guys just play their capability or maybe not won't have career years every year, but they can get more out of what they currently have. And I think, you know, part of it too has been that, you know, the top line has to kind of drive the team based upon their personnel and skill set. You'd have a shutdown line, the refline, which is good, but need somebody to drive offense. And that's a lot of pressure to put on Zuccarello and Caprisov. And they had Hartman last year. Now they have Sam Steele, who was a great story and a pleasant surprise, but I don't think anybody would have penciled him as number one center on this team if you started this season.

So they went from Tyson Yose to Goudreau up there, you know, Harpin started the year there. So basically they've had four or so number one centers on that line all year long. So, you know, I don't think they're banking on the fact that Connor Dewar or Ryan Reeves is going to score 15 goals, but they need the reliable ones, the ones, the Greenways, the Folinos, the Hartmans, to really impact that. And that's where the biggest difference has been five-by-five, them. Yeah, I honestly, like, I've watched a lot of wild games, of course, and throughout the year, but I hadn't really had a chance to really let the numbers sort of sink in until I started preparing for the show with you today. And I found it staggering that they don't have a single

player in the top 70 of 5-1-5 scoring, right? Even Caprizov, who has 23, 5-15 points, I believe, in 10, 5-1-5 goals, to put that in perspective, that's the same number of goals as Minnesota Legends, Nick Bukstad and Nico Stern. Legends. Who, to be fair, are pretty much, I'm still convinced the same person. So maybe it's unfair to compare one Caprizov to the two of them. But it's pretty staggering. And with Caprizov in particular, on the one hand, the power play has been so good.

And he's still been finding a way to generate his own offense. Like, he's on pace for 46 goals and 100 points. So it's not a concern by any means. But then you look at it's like, they're just not, they're not really even scoring up to par with him and Zuccarello on the ice the way they did last year and the way you'd expect them to, right? And I think that's part of the concern as well. Now, I have much more confidence that those guys will eventually get going at 5-1-5 and will start scoring more goals than maybe the rest of the roster. So take that into account. But yeah, even for them, it's been pretty,

tricky. And I wonder, you mentioned some of the pressure and how much is on their shoulders to do all the heavy lifting. I wonder if there is kind of a bit of that cumulative effect where they're just not being put in as many advantageous situations because they don't have a second line that's sort of consistently tilting the ice and, you know, tiring out the other team and then allowing them to hop over the boards in situations where they can quickly strike. Like, a lot of times they're going out there and they're having to sort of start from scratch or even maybe start from a deficit and eventually work their way up towards generating scoring chances. And you look at even in Tampa, like the Kukutrov and Point Line are one of the best combos in the league, but they still had other lines that were able, like the Sam Coast line, or like even the third line when they had great third lines,

to be able to kind of get the momentum and pressure where they could put at a home ice, they could put the point Khrushrov and they were on, gets tired bodies and really take advantage of that. And there have been times this year where Zookruello and Caprius have struggled, or they have forced issues, forced passes, and that's led to negative results for them. And one thing I was curious about,

might have due a story on it is like the whole idea going to the season was the wild had to change a little bit in terms of they couldn't, win like last year where they let the league in come from behind wins and they were this magical story where they outscored their problems and they're kings of overtime like that was an unsustainable model and you found out in the playoffs they had to win a harder closer game and deal with adversity and this was year was meant to make that shifts uh not their identity had to be changed but they had to be more towards that low scoring tight checking you know heavy team quote and they have played better defensively i think the expected goal model for goals allowed as up

up there among the top of the league, but I don't know if that's, I don't say you sacrifice offense for defense or that's changed the way some of the guys have thought about, you know, their play and pinches and aggressiveness. I don't know if there's a way to calculate that, but that might be one way to look at why this team fundamentally five-on-five a year ago was really good offensively, and this year is not with the same personnel minus a Fiala per se. I don't know if there's a way to measure that, but that's one thing that they've been trying to be better at was being better defensively.

and winning those school scoring games, they can't afford to play that five-four game and sustain that model. Which is a remarkable transformation because you watched the first five games they played this season and that was, I guess, your kind of inauguration to the team and the beat, right? And they give up 27 goals in the first five games. And it's like, oh, my God, like what's, every game is 7-5 here. And since then, I believe they're giving up the third fewest goals against. I think only the Bruins and Rangers are giving up less than them,

which is kind of like, it's an incredible in-season transformation. It's also like, it's a bit disappointing for me because, you know, for a while, for a long time, the wild because of their results and the way they played got this rep as being like the most boring team in the league and just trying to grind out games, right? And then Caprizov comes along and for the first two years there or whatever, like they're one of the most exciting teams in the league to watch are playing these uptempo, high scoring games. And it took people a while to recalibrate their priors on them and really come around to like being like, all right, I'm really enjoying watching Minnesota. Wild games. And now this year has been a bit of a step back in that regard, but they've needed it because, as I mentioned, with the 5-1-5 goal scoring really drying up, like, if they hadn't tightened up defensively, and you're right, there might be some sort of like a correlation between those two, but without it, like, they would really be in rough shape right now.

They would be. That's been their saving grace and their goaltending, right? But let's say the goaltending, like after game three, my first column covered in the wild was they had a goalie crisis, right? Like, and it would look pretty bad at that time. You know, Florida getting pulled. Gus of saying we didn't know much about him going into the year, but that's been really good backbone for them, both those guys taking their turns and running with it. So that's been a saving grace for them too in games where they've given up,

maybe those, you know, great-age chances. They've been able to kind of save them and earn them at least a point. So something has to give in that situation, 5-on-5, whether it's their own internal options, switching up lines, which GMS doesn't like to do very much, or maybe acquiring somebody at the deadline that you can maybe one guy's not going to change the whole entire world, right? But one guy can maybe help a Matt Boldie.

And all of a sudden you have two lines instead of one. And then, you know, maybe a third line that doesn't, isn't completely just a checking line, but it can create some scoring opportunities. So there's some ways to do it. But they feel the sustainable model is being better defensively and in goal that will ultimately give them a better chance versus, you know,

and getting more offensive eventually will help them. Yeah. Yeah, well, I should say, I noted that I think more goals will come for boldie similar to the Caprizob. I have, or Sport Logic has him down for six in offensive zone possession time with a puck on a stick. A even passes to a slot sixth in individual cycle chances. So like, you know, they're generating more chances and expected goals with him on the ice than they did last year when they were just, they were scoring a ton of five on five goals with him in Zuccarel out there.

Just for whatever reason, the goals haven't come in the same volume or quantity that they did. So you mentioned that's been kind of forward to the trade deadline then and potential acquisitions or sort of routes they can go for improving this team. I actually think they shouldn't be as sort of preoccupied with the center position. Like I understand, as you mentioned, it's not ideal when you look at the list of centers that have played with the top two lines. And it's like, all right, well, this probably won't play in a playoff series. But I think part of what I underrated, like I actually didn't think they would miss. Kevin Fiala nearly as much as they have heading into the season. And I think part of what I underrated was the things he specifically did well, right?

Like he was a winger for them, but he was the primary puck transporter up the ice. He was the guy who had the sort of skating ability and dynamic quality to his game where he could take the puck and bring it to the middle of the ice and create either for himself or others. And then you look at their heat map this season at 515 and part of why they're not scoring, is because they don't take shots in the middle of the ice. Like they don't really have players that can get there. There's a lot of cross-ice stuff and coming from behind the net with Caprizo and Zuccarello. They don't really have a single skater up front.

They can take the puck from point A to point B and create. And so I think it's less of a sort of priority to get a center. It'd be nice if you could get one. But I think for me, the priority would have to be getting someone with skating ability who can replicate at least 50 to 75% of what the reality. did in that specific area to at least give them a bit more juice up front? No, it's a good point. And, you know, as far as the centers that are available that are the bigger names, quote,

the Taze or the Ryan O'Reilly's, you never know if they're available or what that'll cost. But I think I do think a center would help in some instance that they're one of the lower and based off teams in the league right now. I think they're like a 46, 47 percent. But I think like the winger, a winger with Boldie would definitely help and it would kind of trickle down guys in the line up to their. probably appropriate positions. You know, I know Patrick Kane's the biggest name, but I don't know if like Robbyshev

or other small, the different names out there that can maybe create, whether zone entries or move to fucking side of the slot. So unless you have some other names and you might have thought like the big of his teams. I have one that's really interesting. The only roadblock is there's uncertainty with his return from injury and also the fact that he makes $3 million next year. So I wonder if it would have to be a type of trade where it's like, you're moving out Greenway as well, either to a third team or to the team in question.

But Anthony Duclair is a player who just, like, stylistically from a skill perspective, would provide a lot of what they need in that regard of 5-on-5 scoring of the ability to take the puck from point to point B to help make life easier for others by setting the table. All of a sudden, if he's playing on the opposite wing of Boldie, for example, you can allow Boldie to focus on those in-zone settings that he's great at and take some of the pressure off of in terms of getting there in the first place. And so I'm not sure yet. We haven't seen him play this season right.

He's coming back from a torn Achilles for a player. He's still young, but for a player who relies on his skating to come back from Artourne Achilles is always scary. So I'd kind of like to see him play games first to make sure that he still has that speed that he had prior to the injury. But, you know, $3 million for next year for a player with his. skill set would be highly intriguing to me. And the Panthers are sort of in a similar spot as the wild in terms of like financial restrictions. So I'm sure you could facilitate a deal

like that. But the fact that he's not just a pure rental for the rest of the season, but has money attached next year, it might be a bit tricky to navigate for them. Yeah. If you do a hockey trade, like you mentioned, a guy like a green wave with a $3 million cap hit himself could help. And I don't know if they can't take any term. I don't know if that's the case. They they probably could take some term if it's a hockey trade where you get a guy back money in money out and i like to player too i'm curious about his health and i'm curious also with the florida panthers who still i think in their hearts of hearts believed they can make a run at a wild card spot right or they would probably want to keep it maybe you keep hornquist on l t i are the rest of the regular

season and you have some more cap space you don't have to move a duclair you know at the deadline like you might maybe all thought they would have to do so um but yeah i think a player like that would be really good fit for the wild just matter if they can find the the trade partner that would work out to make that trade to have enough money next year to accommodate that salary. How much of your day-to-day is just dealing with wild fans cooking up maddumba trades? I imagine it's a pretty big part of the job. In the comment section? Yeah, just everywhere.

Just Twitter, just the athletic articles everywhere. Like, you know, let's trade. They're like, let's trade Mattumba for. Boer Horbat straight up or, you know, like all these different things, you know, it's like, everybody, it's funny how any fan base you are around, this is not just Minnesota wild, but they always have this, they always overvalue players that they are sick and tired of. And so, like, they think the, they can just get rid of this player that they hate and that they don't like, and that they'll get a huge return for him, you know, it doesn't seem like it's

logical at times. But yeah, I mean, he's been, I haven't been in this market for a long time, but I know that there are some fans that have been kind of tired of, of some, the struggles that he's had and his, you know, mistakes he makes. He's not a perfect player, but he also plays 20 minutes in the penalty kill and there's a hard rule to replace internally if you want to move him, which is why I think he could end up being, staying with the team, past the deadline, just be their own rental. Well, Cho, he leads the team in 5-1-5 ice time, which is, it might be surprising to people, and that's a tough thing. Like, we saw the two games that he played. The fact that he wasn't playing wasn't the reason they lost necessarily,

but it's really tough to replace those minutes, especially when for any flaws he has in his game, he does make contributions as well, right? And so just purely like, regardless of how tired you are of them or if he makes a mistake and you're like, okay, like we could do without this, filling those minutes in a productive manner is really tough, right? And I think that can be understated sometimes as well. It's, all right, you're moving them well. Who's stepping into those minutes and how are you accommodating them now if you could move him in a hockey trade to get a forward that could help contribute a lot of the things that we just highlighted previously, that would be interesting. But I think just a matter of like, all right, let's just trade them just for the sake of

trading them seems pretty counterproductive to me, considering what this team's aspirations are, at least for the rest of this season. They still feel like they're a playoff team. They still feel a team that could win a playoff series. And so, and that's why having a top four defensemen, I don't think they feel comfortable yet putting Kail and Edison into top four. I don't think they feel comfortable at regular basis having Golgoski or on an offside, you know, with Brodeen. So that's the thing. You have to replace that person those highest five-on-five minutes on the team with somebody and then be productive minutes too. So like there's a Luke Shen all of a sudden solve it. You put Luke Shen

if you trade for him in the top four, you feel comfortable doing that. So all these things where you don't want to make your team worse, make a team better in one instance and make your team worse than another, which is why it's so difficult for GMs of the deadline aside from the cap space situation. Yeah. Well, I don't think a move like that will help fix the team's 5-1-5 scoring concerns. Let's say that. All right. Was there anything else on the wild here that you wanted to get to while we are chatting while I have you here? I had a note about Jared's Bridge and I wanted to give him a bit of love. He's been terrific. Yeah. Unbelievable season. Age 33 season, the impacts that he's having out there. I mean, he's got a shot at setting nuclear highs and in goals and points, of course. But you just look at him like,

They've given up 24, 5-on-5 goals in like 750 plus minutes with him on the ice. I mean, just remarkable season from him that is once again not being overshadowed, but just not being talked about because he's Jared Spurgeon, but just like adding to the lore of what an analytics goat he has been for like the majority of the past decade. Well, I was asked by another writer who's doing some poll. If it wasn't a pre-suff on the All-Star team, who would you pick? And Jared Spurgeon was the first guy came to mind because he's been their best.

player outside from Capri Soff, the most consistent guy. But I think that's been the story of his whole career, right? He doesn't really get at all the headlines where people don't, you know, all those accolades, but he's just consistently good. And I thought, you know, when the better times of his career, but fans are like, he's been this way every year, every year of his career. And people don't really appreciate it as much. But for a five, nine, five, ten defenseman, it's really incredible in this league to be that consistent, that durable, makes such a smart plays with the stick, smart pinches. A lot of things that you have to be. You can't go head to head

with the guy in front of the net and push a guy out in front of you to get the positioning out and push him off from the boards, make sure you don't get to the front of the net. So it's been really helpful. I think they've used him's example with Kill and Addison, said, hey, watch this guy, watch Spurgeon, watch how he does it. This is how you may not be a Jared Spurgeon,

but just by taking 50% of his game and doing what he does, you're going to be a much better player. And I think that's a good example for them to have with some younger, smaller defenseman like him. I love that. All right, Joe. Well, let's I'll give you a chance here to promote some stuff because you've been busy at work, including, you know, kind of cycling back to your old beat

and writing about Stephen Stamco's as well after his big goal scoring milestone, which actually happened here in Vancouver. So I'll let you tell the listeners about that and kind of some of the other stuff you've been cooking up and working on because I'm curious to hear about it myself, actually. Yeah, like I've tried to take this Minnesota slash national role and do a little bit everything. And so on the NHL side has Stephen Stamco's story talking about the 500 goal scores, what that milestone means and what makes Samco special and if it'll be harder to get as years

go on in the league. We had a couple stories this week. Rerko Rossi update on him, talk to him and Garron and Tim Armi on where he's at his development. If that reassignment to Iowa can make a difference for him going forward. I have a big feature on Jesper Walsstadt, the goal of the future for the wild running tomorrow on the athletic. And for lightning listeners, if they're out there here for this show have several lighting features that I kind of reported while I was in town last week enjoying the sunshine and seeing some old friends that will be running around the next few weeks or so. So I think that's something I really enjoyed going back and seeing some of the guys and talking to some of the players there. And there'll be a team that we all can be covering for another

four months again. So we'll find out. Yeah, definitely. You see that clip of speaking of Wollstad of him dancing during the during the game at down in high. So Michael Jackson? Yeah. He's more of a rap guy, but I think he's eclectic at his musical taste. And some guys didn't know if he knew all the words to the song,

but he knew the rhythm to it. So yeah, yeah, he was moving. He was moving out there for sure. All right, Joe, this is a blast. I'm glad we finally got to connect and get you on the show. For the listeners, the only thing I have to vote is the podcast you're listening to. So if you enjoyed it, go hit the five star button

and leave a rating and review wherever you. you listen and we'll be back tomorrow with more here so until then thank you for listening to the hockey p.o cast streaming on the sports net radio network