The Hockey PDOcast - How Wyatt Johnston Is Creating So Many Chances This Postseason

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Darryl Belfry to take a closer look at how Wyatt Johnston created so many scoring chances in the first two rounds, the diverse manner in which he's done it, and why it was so difficult for the Golden Knights and Avalanche to defend against. 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.

It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Demetri Filippovich. And joining me as my good buddy, Daryl, what's going on, man? Ah, not much. Just excited to be back here and looking forward to this next round. We are so back. It's been a while since you and I have gotten to do this.

The last one we did was right at the end of the regular season. First couple rounds of the playoffs took up all our attention here, certainly. But now that we're getting into the conference finals. as I was saying to you before we went on the air, one game per night, much more manageable workload for us. We can do fun projects like this. And yesterday I did my conference finals preview here in the PDOCast. And at the end of it, I promised the listeners a special treat today. And I think, you know, maybe I'm a little bit biased, but I do think this qualifies you and I getting together, getting the geek out about Wyatt Johnson for the next 50 minutes. And I think this is going to be a really fun show. He certainly, you know, not come out of nowhere because even as a rookie last year, he made a big. impact and then anyone to watch the stars this regular season got to appreciate his game,

but he certainly ratchet up to an entirely different level this postseason, distinguished himself as a true marquee player. And I want to get into it all with you because I've talked about him a bunch on the PDO cast here during this postseason, yet every time I talk about him, I can drop all of these stats about him, I can quantify how good he's been. It's much more difficult and elusive for me to describe it, though, because I just, he's always open. And I'm so fascinated by that concept of how a star player like that can consistently get himself into these high danger areas.

No one in this industry is more qualified and better equipped to articulate some of those concepts and diagnose what's happening than you. So that's why I'm excited to have you on here today. So let's get into it. Let's talk about Wyatt Johnson, how he's doing all this to you. I sent you a ton of clips from the first two rounds here. What are you seeing from him? and what really stands out to you, what you watch tape on him so far? Well, like I'll, the precursor to that answer is that the thing that is exciting about

Wyatt Johnson for me is that he passes the consistency test, which is very difficult to do. It's like the hardest thing to do in the National Hockey League in terms of that, that shift from being an NHL player, being a full-time NHL player, them trying to be a top six player and then now trying to become a real legit star player, the pathway to that is paved in consistency. So he is able to establish consistency. So what is he consistent at? So that's the real, to me, that's the real question.

What is he doing that is so consistent that allows him to be, to your point, seemingly always open? He's always seemingly around the puck or making a play that decides games or gets things going. He is a momentum changer when he steps on the ice. So what is it exactly that he's doing? And there's many things that he's doing really well. But to me, I think you can break it down at least initially into two things that he does extremely well. One, he is on time and he is in rhythm. So the differentiation between those two terms are, on time means that you are,

he is in time and his game is on time with the speed and pace of the play. So he knows, he can anticipate where the play is and he can arrive when he, in the right space at the right time with the right amount of speed, he is on time. And one of the characteristics of a player who is struggling is that they are either a day late and a dollar short or they're too early. And they're pressing or whatever. This guy is on time.

He's in the flow of the game. So that's the first part is that he's on time. Well, can I ask you something about that before you go ahead? Well, just follow on that. I'm curious for your take then with players you've worked with, is that something that you feel like you can, it's just kind of like innate with a player where you either have or you don't,

it's like a feel for the game. And maybe that's kind of what we describe with hockey IQ, or do you think it is something that ebbs and flows with confidence, but also can be sort of refined and sharpened in the early developmental stages when a player gets into the NHL. Or do you think it's just like either you have it and then sometimes it can come and go or you don't and you can only do so much with it? No, it's something that you can definitely influence at very high level.

Obviously, players have a certain degree of it, and they have habits that lead themselves into it. They can influence their timing, and they know they've had situations where they've been off time, and they know, okay, yeah, I'm pressing. I'm above the puck too much. I'm getting there too quickly. Or I'm late. My late, my read is late. I need to get on time.

So a lot of people will talk about, well, he's got to get his feet moving. Translation to feet moving, it's really not that you want his feet moving. Feet moving is a conduit for the player to get on time. He's not on time. He's late. He needs to get on time. So the best example of timing and the real rooted issues of offensive challenge is you don't have to look very far. you just have to look at Elias Pedersen.

That guy is not on time. He has fallen off the timing and he's late and he's hesitant and he doesn't attack space and he catches puck standing still or with very little speed. And he doesn't have the separation speed inherently to be able to make it up if he's not really on time. So when he's on time, he's great. But if he's off, he can't make it up with his feet where some place, players can be like, oh, I'm a little off. So I'll just take a couple steps here and I'm good. That's the situation. This Johnson is on time. Now, the question is, how do you get on time?

So like I said, some of it is, some of it is feet moving. Fair enough. Yes, that is a part of it. The other part of it that's really important is the pre-reads of the puck and you're positioning on the ice. So where are you going and why and how early? And do you have hesitation in your game? So that's another factor. And the other thing is in Johnson's case, he has a habit in which he prefers to have the puck,

particularly in either transition or off the rush, he likes to acquire the puck coming from behind it. So when you watch him play, you'll notice that there's a lot of pucks in which he is in acceleration starting from slightly below the puck. He gets even with it and then he's either getting it when he's even with it or he gets it as he's going ahead. So he has this art of being from behind the puck

which allows him to read the play in front of him. So because he reads the play with the play in front of him, he can pick the time in which he should be accelerated. He can see the conditions of the puck, can see the conditions of the play. And then he chooses when, which is why a player like him, if he's struggling, you don't want to be saying to him, hey, like, you need to, you know, you need to get going north, for example. Like, that's not going to help a guy like this. So those are some ideas that surround timing. And then the second part of that is rhythm.

And what rhythm is is the ability to. have movement with the body in conjunction with the puck. The smoothness of the movement of the body in conjunction of the puck, that's rhythm. When you have timing and rhythm, you have a guy who's poised to be able to maximize his offensive instincts. Well, it's interesting you brought that up because the timing component of in particular because I remember it was a couple of years ago and now time really does fly. But when I came out to Florida and I got to sit in on.

on your coaching conference that year. You had a presentation early on that I really enjoyed about kind of highlighting timing that works and doesn't. And sort of the contrast of it. I remember you had a clip there. I think he's improved since then, certainly. But Britt Barrett Hayden kind of struggling early in his career with movement and kind of how he could get sort of stuck or stagnant. And then all of a sudden he's constantly trying to catch up and he's always a step behind in comparison with Joe Pavelski, who's a veteran. and isn't necessarily fleet of foot by any means,

but he's got the timing down because his movement patterns in any zone are always so disciplined and refined that he's already got it down to a science, right? So he's always moving in these little circles. And then that allows him to essentially jump back in on the line when he needs to and be in rhythm right away. And that's actually what I thought in watching all the tape on Johnston, what I noticed where, especially in the offensive zone, he's constantly moving in these little circles that they wind up with him arriving pretty much between the faceoff circles at just the right time whenever the puck gets there right and that's almost an impossible thing for an NHL defense to sort of sit on because it's right in between these two areas and no one's just going to stand there you're sort of following you're moving around the puck's behind the net you're getting dragged out of position and then all of a sudden this guy just in the blink of an eye arrives there and is able to get a shot off quickly right and you can't really

prepare for it. And that's really just watching the tape. It feels like he's got that down. And that's really cool because you and I did a show on Logan Stankov in a couple months ago now. And you made the note of how sort of the luxury for some of these young guys stepping into the lineup and being able to essentially absorb a lot of information and tendencies and habits from established players who have already worked that out themselves. And you see that with Johnson playing with Jamie Ben certainly where they can almost interchange center and wing responsibilities, but I think you also see it with Joe Pavelski where it feels like he's sort of picked up on that and incorporated it into his game. And that's like a really cool developmental tool that I think they've nailed there. Yes. And to pick up on that, there is a concept that I

use in my player development, which is do not occupy the space you want to attack. So what you're talking about and what you speak about when you see these offensive players who like, are like to your point either circling or you see them like take back ice in an unusual way where like they're in the middle of the ice and they slightly move towards the dot and then they come back in so they use these like reroutes and they reroute themselves. It's an effort not to occupy the space that they're trying to attack so that when they do choose to attack into that space, it's hidden. the defenseman is now trying to anticipate where you really want to attack from and try to kind of beat you to the punch. But it's very difficult to do that because this guy is setting it up. And then to your point, all of a sudden he attacks this space. If you're really good, then what you're trying to do is preserve the shooting space.

So you're slightly outside the stick range. You're not at risk to get any contact. You've got this little bubble that when you catch the. puck, then you have a little time to be able to attack, which is what we see, what we see with Johnson. So not occupying the space you want to attack from is also a situation like we talked about with net presence. So the thing also about Johnson, he scores a lot of goals, either in the hash marks or at the net, but he's not standing there. He like arrives there and somehow the puck gets there and then it's on and off his stick and the puck's in the net. And you're like,

when you really look, he's like he was slightly away from the net. And then as the puck arrived, you see him take like one step or just kind of slide into this space next to you know, he's right there. But he's not standing there and the puck arrives on his stick and then he shoots it in. He preserves the space by staying away from it. Plus he leaves the defenseman away from that space. Now the puck arrives on the net. He jumps into that space, which he's preserved.

And that's how he gets a lot of these clean looks. So not not attacking or not standing in the space you want to attack from is a massive area of this timing piece. But it requires forethought, which this is where the consistency comes in. Because he's feeling it, he is seeing these spaces so clearly.

And he's confident to stay out of those spaces until the time is just right. And he knows like over the course of a game, he's going to get five or six of these looks. And right now he's bang on time. When you don't see him get there slightly a little bit early, stop, the defenseman kind of gets within range. Now he gets the puck and now he's got to like shoot through a screen.

Like he doesn't have any of that because he's, he's in rhythm. Sorry, he's in timing. And then when he gets the puck, he has rhythm. He's able to catch the puck and release it quickly. He can two touch it really fast. He can drag it. He uses his feet really well. He can separate his upper body for his little body.

That's rhythm. The ability to move your body in relationship to the puck. So this kid, he has both of those going on right now on the highest stage. And, you know, his history suggests that this is going to be a problem for the league for quite a while because he's just been doing this at every level. And now he's figured out the timing of the league. and he's on it. Yeah, that's where you're seeing.

Yeah, he's almost disguising his attentions, right? It's kind of like if a pitcher is just like working the outside of the plate or something and trying to like get the batter's attention there just to set him up for later on in the bat to get the ball inside, right? And that's kind of what's going on here. I love that game within the game, right? Because I think if you're just kind of casually tuning in or you don't get to watch him on a regular basis, I'm sure both Golden Knights and Avalanche fans maybe experience this in their

respective series, it almost drives you crazy because you're like, all right, this guy is just constantly open in the most high danger area of the ice. Why aren't our guys covering them? And you're almost like, are they just not paying attention? And that's not the case at all. The game within the game is he's setting that up steps ahead. And they actually are fully aware of that in their game planning. I'm sure their coaches are talking about it. We know how in the playoffs, these teams add effort and attention to detail to packing the paint and insulating their goalies by kind of protecting that inner slot, right? And yet he's still able because he's working the outside to step in at just the right time.

And then if the puck doesn't arrive, you'll see him essentially do that route again, maybe on the different side of the ice, but he's constantly trying to get back in there. And so that's really fun to watch. I mean, this is something that we're talking about a guy, and I know it's kind of beating a dead horse at this point in the broadcast, keep talking about how he just turned 21 years old. I think everyone gets it at this point. But it is remarkable that this is like next level stuff that you'd expect from a player who's in their prime or has already been through this and had to learn by trial by air.

This is a guy in his second year that's already kind of figured out one of the most difficult things in hockey, I think. So what's more impressive than that is his ability to absorb failure. So, you know, your shooting percentage is still going to be, you know, 15, maybe 20%, if you're lucky, if you go on a heater. You still have a lot of plays that are not happening. he might get there with perfect timing, but the puck doesn't arrive because the conditions of the puck may be changed where the defending on the puck made it difficult for the guy to make a quality pass in there.

And he just reroutes. He just reroutes again. So he's very resistant to failure. And this is where you see consistency problems in young players. So a lot of young players, especially with the pressure of, like, let's forget about the playoffs. Let's say put a 21, 20-year-old player. And he's supposed to be an offensive star.

And now he gets in the league. And he's in perfect position. He gets there. His timing is right. Everything's good. He doesn't get the puck. So that happens once. Then he comes around.

He reroutes again. He's like itching because he wants. All he needs is the puck. He's in a perfect place again. And the puck doesn't come. Or it comes, but it gets kind of deflected at the last second and it doesn't quite arrive there. Or it's in his feet or it's somewhere funny.

And he's not able to convert that. What happens, and this is what knocks the consistency, off of a player is they then start thinking that they that they're the ones that need to adjust. So rather than just stay with this process and be like, listen, it didn't work once, didn't work twice, didn't work three times, I'm just going to stay with it. And eventually, I'm going to get this and it's going to be on time. They don't do that. This is where they consist.

They go, oh, I need to change. Maybe I should get there earlier so that the guy knows I'm going to be there. Maybe I'm playing with, you know, new, like rationalize. like I'm playing with new linemates. They don't necessarily know my habits. Maybe I should just get there, declare my position, and now the guy will pass it to me. Okay, great.

Yeah, now you get the puck, but that's almost worse. You get a perfect pass, but you're now not in a position to be able to take advantage. You declared your position. You drew the defensive pressure, et cetera, et cetera. These are the real issues that happen. So now the player's like, oh, man, well, maybe I should, you know, maybe I should hide my, so now they arrive a little bit late.

And this is where it becomes a real, mental game with these star players or players that have potential to be star and why they get really streaky because they do change their habits. This Johnson is very resistant to failure. His confidence level is really high and he just knows over time I'm going to be okay. Now part of that is to your point, he's playing with good players. Jamie Ben has historically been an impact player, especially when you get to playoffs like he's the type of guy who can hold on to a puck and make the play at the right

time and now you got a johnston who can do that and arrive at that time so he can afford to be more patient because he's playing with better players and this is where we've talked about this before a lot of the n hl is situation and you know there's very few players who can play out like with a situation that just doesn't fit and they have to kind of make it work. And there's a lot of players that do do that. Not everybody can do that. And this guy has found the timing.

He's got the spacing. He's figured out where he needs to be and why. He's got great confidence. The people that he plays with have confidence in him because when they do give him a good puck, he's able to put himself in a position where he can do something with it. So now he's got these conditions set up where he can really take off. And it's really exciting to see a young player like this who,

The impressive parts are the consistency and the resistance and the resilience to failure. Those are the two most impressive parts for me. Set aside all these other things that we're talking about. Those two things are the two things that usually get these young players and bite them. It's not really their habits. It's those two things. Certainly. And not only I think the benefit of a good situation within his line, but within the team concept as well.

Whereas if his line goes through one of these playoff games and there is, either being defended well or the puck's just not landing properly and they're not getting looks, it's not all of a sudden going to result on a loss and sort of a situation where you're, you're having a lot of introspection, right? Like if it continues, then maybe you got to figure out what's going on, but they can have an off night. And then another line picks it up because the Star's team is so deep. And I think that kind of helps you kind of stay on track and just play your game and eventually believe that it's going to come around. Let me give you a couple stats to illustrate a point that I want to make here. So the volume of looks he's generating right now is

just absolutely outrageous. He is for the postseason in 13 games, first and shot attempts, fourth in shots on goal, second in high danger chances, sport logic has him at first and four check chances, first in rebound chances, third in rush chances, and ninth in cycle chances. I think the diversity of looks he creates is what's interesting to me. And I want to talk about that a little bit with you because I know we've discussed that when we talked about David Pasternak, a couple other sort of superstar offensive players, how in today's game, you can't just necessarily have one tool and lean on it exclusively, right? A lot of these guys to perform and produce the way they are,

you have to be able to be good at everything. You've got to create chances in different ways. And that's sort of what you're seeing from them here. Those of us that are watching on YouTube as Darrell and I talk and see how these chances are kind of being created by him. But he's essentially creating the same number of rush chances as Carter McDavid and then the same number of rebound chances as Zach Hyman. He's essentially playing the role of both of those guys.

who are at the very top of their respective skill sets, and he's kind of combined it into one player this postseason. And I think that's what's remarkable to me, right? This isn't like him just, we're talking about how he's getting open in the offensive zone and moving around and all of that, and that's sort of his bread and butter. But he's also doing it off the rush.

He's doing it, creating turnovers. He scored that short-handed goal off of multiple efforts against the avalanche that kind of broke their back in game four. You're seeing it pretty much all over the ice in so many different ways, and I think that's an important distinction here as well. Very important distinction. One of the other things that I really love and appreciate about his game right now is his ability to bring a puck off the wall and make it high danger.

You'll see like a lot of times high danger gets associated with a player playing inside. So he stays inside or he routes himself inside. Someone else is doing the heavy lifting on the wall and they find you in a good spot that allows you to create a high danger play. What has been impressive about Johnston is that he has been able to take the puck off of the wall himself, attack off the wall, and create a high danger chance for either himself or other people. That's what I think is really cool. And you do that through no hesitation and a great first touch play.

We've talked about first touch here quite a bit. And it is a major deal. And what Johnston does extremely well is he, on his first touch, he's off the wall. He gets off the wall. He makes a play off the wall. And then he'll route following the puck into the middle of the ice. The other thing that he has added to his game that I didn't really know that he was doing, maybe he was doing it all year and I just didn't see or notice.

But he does win a lot of pucks through second effort, especially at the, the net area. There's a lot of plays that don't happen. It gets bouncing. Maybe the shot gets blocked. Maybe the defenseman has a good stick. It makes a good defensive play. And his second effort allows him to get control of the puck,

sustain the offensive chance and create either for himself or other people. So when he's on the inside, he is very determined. He does great job preserving space like we talked about. But then he also has excellent second chance. he's very dogged on the puck in those situations. And then his play on the wall, like I'm talking the half wall. You mentioned the cycle. There's all I have in my notes here on him that he's been an excellent player,

playmaking coming up the wall. So getting the puck in the corner and then coming up towards the blue line on a cycle and then making interior passes or attacking himself off the boards in between the space between the defensive player who's on him and the defensive forward who's on the point. There's like a window there. And you've seen him attack that space multiple times in the playoffs off the cycle. And so he's a guy that just isn't playing with a ton of, with any hesitation.

And, you know, as we're talking, we're in the section of the video where it just seems like every clip is one that has him coming off the boards and attacking, which. which is very timely by you. Yeah, that worked out well. No, I think it's remarkable just seeing how he's doing all this stuff. And I think in particular, I'm glad you brought up his doggedness on the puck. I think the kids these days, Daryl, are referring to that as him having dog in him. And I think that's exactly what you see as well where he's got dog in him.

Like he's his competitive interest. I think that's something that the stars very clearly prioritize and rate very, highly in their prospect evaluation, right? I think that certainly applies to Logan Stancoven as well, where despite his frame, he's just consistently outworking and out battling guys five, six, seven inches taller than them and just winning these battles against them along the boards and in front of the net. And you see that with Johnson, just multiple efforts, the competitiveness, how fearless he is as well, right?

And a lot of these clips against the abs, like he's being matched head to head not only with Nathan McKinnon in terms of the forward matchup, but against Devon Taves and Kail McCarr. and he is taking the puck to the net against Devon Taves. He's winning battles against him, spinning off of them, initiating contact, and then taking the puck to the net afterwards. It's really next level, really cool stuff. And for him to be doing that right now is impressive. I mean, I don't know, I'm almost speechless watching this

because there's just so many different ways he's slicing and dicing. And I think that's what makes them special as well. And that's why I wanted to shout out all those stats, because it's not necessarily just one thing. this is how you get the volume of looks that he's created this postseason. It's this variety of different things. Yeah. Anytime you're analyzing a player like this, there's going to be many reasons why.

There isn't just, you're not going to say, well, you know, his rush game has been spectacular. And that's been the reason. And if that's the only thing that's going on, it's going to be difficult for him to sustain that. and the reason that he's having such consistent success is because he can beat you in multiple different ways. And then, you know, it's like this machine that starts. So, you know, however, like every player has like a starting point or like a cue, like some guys. You know, you'll hear it all the time.

Like, you know, I just felt good once I got that first hit out of the way. Or I felt I felt much better when, you know, when I. I got that rush chance early or felt really good when, you know, I was at the network. You heard when Kreider had that unbelievable game to knock out Carolina. That was amazing. But what he talked about was, yeah, I've been in the paint all season, all year. I go there all the time. It just so happened.

We did such a good job of delivering the puck there, but I'm there. And that's why these things were happening. And, you know, whatever it is that John Stone's like the thing that kind of like gets him going, he, that starts it. And then you build a little, build confidence in that, start getting the puck, start generating some chances. Well, that, of course, gives you energy to be dogged on a puck and to go for those second chances. And the stars themselves spend a lot of time in the offensive zone. So he's going to get a lot of looks.

some predictability to his, to his offensive opportunities. So it allows him to do that. Then you play with guy like Jamie Ben, who has been a guy who is very rugged and who's going to win some pucks. So all of a sudden, Jamie Ben wins a puck for you, very competitive in a corner,

you know, maybe knocks somebody over or takes a hit to make a play. Well, it's very difficult for you then not to want to do those things. You know, it's very, for him, because that's all part of team and being a good,

line and these things start to compound and that's where a player like him who has a dive it's it's not just a diversity of skill it's that he is building confidence in different ways and then one thing leads to the next leads to next and now he is really like his his emotional bank account is is massive which allows him to then have some failure go in there and he can absorb that failure. And that's where the whole thing starts to really turn. And I think that's what you see with a player like this is you just can't, like, again, like this guy's scoring like 100 plus points in the OHL, which there's lots of players

who have done who have done that. But like he, the way he was doing it was really impressive. Again, not doing the same thing. Then he gets in and he has a, you know, reasonable rookie campaign. and then now he's like knocking the cover off of it. There's a history here of a player who just believes that he can be an offensive difference maker. And now he's got this wheel turning and everything is really compounding for him. It's awesome.

I love that. I love the concept of the emotional bank account. I think his actual personal real life bank account is also going to be full pretty soon too. Very much so. Yes. Yes. Okay. So here's a question I have for you then in watching all this.

not sure if you notice this as well or if it's not really a thing, but you and I've spoken a lot in covering various players this season about how star players in today's game are so comfortable with making plays with the puck away from their body, right? Either to sort of like get a defender to like unveil their own intentions and show their stick and then make a play within that triangle or just to give them kind of more range of motion and mobility. In his case, I actually think it's like he's certainly comfortable doing that and there's a few times he he makes a move around a defender where he puts the puck out there but i've actually noticed he makes a lot of plays with his hands really in tight and close to his body is there something there with kind of like

that sort of either grip or stick positioning or is it just kind of like he's able to do pretty much everything because it feels like he's he's constantly making plays with like the puck really close to his feet and and almost like it's it's providing some troubles i think for opposing and goalies because he's not even really having to sort of drag the puck in when he's releasing to change the release angle. It's always in that position to begin with. Yeah, there's something to that. One of it is that he actually would prefer not to have to go into your space.

He's trying to preserve the space outside of your stick. Many, many of his plays are outside the stick. And the times in which he attacks the triangle or the stick or gets into much higher traffic situation in terms of doing that is when he has an advantage. So usually a speed advantage. So one of the things I really appreciate about him is this whole playing from below the puck or coming from behind the puck on preserving the shot space. So when he, once he reads where he wants to go, he attacks into that space.

What it allows him to do is have a differential. So if he's on the rush, for example, by coming behind the puck, The defense is gaped to the puck and the player who's threatening the most. He is a layer below that. So now he accelerates at another level to get up there. The defense are gaped to the wrong guy. He gets the puck. They're at a disadvantage.

That allows him to attack the triangle much more safely because he has an advantage. In the offensive zone, he stays outside the stick range. Now he's like, let's say he's getting in and around the slot. Okay. so there's a defenseman who's kind of at the net, all of a sudden he slides into the space, he's going to catch it there. Once he catches it there,

what is that defenseman doing? Well, he's coming out at him. So they got a defenseman who's coming towards him, which puts a defenseman at a disadvantage because now Johnston can pick, you know, he can attack a heel, for example. He can go through a guy, but he puts himself in situations

where he's outside the stick range on first touch. And then if he needs to attack, he can assess his advantage and he'll either get it and move it right away without you being able to intelligently defend the space with having a good stick to puck. Or he will attack you through that space depending on what his advantage is.

And that's where the pre-touch read is so important. Because he knows where he's supposed to be. He assesses your position. He sees what's happening. All he's waiting for is the puck play. The conditions become favorable. Now he jumps into his space. On that first touch, he already knows what the advantage is.

He knows what kind of position that defender is going to be in. And then he attacks him accordingly. So he's different than another guy that you could take a look at who loves, loves, loves to be inside of somebody's triangle. is Troy Terry in Anaheim. He will purposely bring it inside of your space. He wants to be and is most comfortable when the puck is protected between the defender's skates and the end of their stick blade.

That's the space he wants to get into and he'll do different things to do that. Another guy who loves to be in that space and we see it a lot on the rush is Connor McDavid. He's very comfortable with the puck, hiding the puck, protecting it in your space. This guy doesn't initially like to do that. It's not what he's intending to do.

He just, if he sees an advantage, he will then go into a space. His preference is to make the play prior to where your stick is a factor. And the way he does that is he preserves that space. He doesn't occupy it. and he's on time. Now, one of the indicators that Wyatt Johnson is struggling would be if he finds himself in contested stick situations versus a defender without an advantage.

That will tell you he's getting there too early. He's pressing. The timing isn't just isn't right. And now he's caught in these situations that are less favorable. Well, it'll be interesting to see because I think he's going to get a lot of as we look ahead to the conference final, a lot of the TSA Clubman and Evan Bouchard, and they're both really good with their sticks.

But he's acquitted himself really well so far. I mean, he's pretty much, but played exclusively. He played most of his minutes against McCar and Taves in round two. He played a lot against Petrangelo and Annafin and Theodore and McNabb in round one. Like, he's taking the hard route here in terms of no soft matchups or no soft minutes, and he's still producing this way. Yeah, just a combination of these things, right?

Just give me one point on that, on the matchups throughout. So, Macar and Macar and Taves like to defend skating forwards. They're not really absorbed defensemen. If they have to absorb, they will absorb. But they like to challenge a play early. They're primarily, they're more like transition defenders. So the timing and the spacing of what he was able to do was he was able to play by playing underneath that when he got the puzzle.

he was playing against them when they were skating forwards against the initial puck carrier and then had to transition backwards to play him coming next. So he was able to take them out of their defensive strength. Evan Bouchard is the definition in large part of a absorbed defender. He doesn't like skating forwards to defend. He will back up. So it'll be very interesting to see because this is kind of where Johnson, want you. He wants you in that absorb, but he doesn't have the situation where Taves and

McCar would initially like gap up and be skating forwards initially and then pivot backwards to play. Bouchard is just going to concede the space and back up. And what he will do is contest the space as it gets to the top of the circle. That's been his, his defensive MO in terms of defending the rush. So it'll be very interesting because what he'll be doing is, he will be slowing down as Johnson is speeding up. And it'll be something to take a look at to see if Johnson does try to attack him or whether he stays outside of his stick space and just utilizes that space because that will be afforded to him early with Bouchard.

I love that. That's such a good note, Daryl. Yeah, there's that. I think I love watching him play in the way he interacts. with Stankovin because we mentioned kind of like the four check chances and the sort of diversity of chances he creates. There's a lot as well and it's a perfect combination of the two because there's there are numerous instances in the Ave series where Stankovin's much more of a like on stick

attacker where like he's comfortable sort of jitterbugging around right like he'll work up and down the zone and kind of direct your attention his way and then that almost helps just make Johnston even more impossible to cover because he's sort of lurking in the shadows. Then he pops open and Stankovin gets it to him. And then the way they interact with each other off the forecheck where Stankovin, especially back checking, as we highlighted when we talked about him, is already such a menace and he's creating so many turnovers. And then their ability to instantly turn that into a scoring chance because

Johnston's essentially with that timing stepping into the right space as Stankovin gets to puck off a turnover, they're just leveraging that into so many quick looks. And you put all that together. And I had this question written down here that I wanted to run by you of like how you game plan and defend against this because you can't necessarily just load up on one thing because then he's shown comfort beating you in many different ways. You can't use a specific type of defender because then he'll just pick apart whatever other weakness they have. I'm not sure what the answer is beyond just hope your goalie, I guess, makes the save. And that can certainly happen as we talk about shooting percentages can be very sort of volatile and fleeting. And all it takes is a couple games of puck's not going in to make a difference in the postseason.

but he's going to get his chances like that's already pretty much established regardless of the way you defend him. Yeah, I mean, the best way to defend any of these guys is to get to him early. So, you know, you don't want to let him have too much willing, too much ability to be able to choose his routes. So for example, if you're on the rush with him and you're a player off the puck, then you would want to cut him off and make him reroute before he wants to reroute. So he has to reroute to get around you. So you would cut him off or set like a moving screen that he would now have to skate around. So now he's that's not really, he's not choosing that route for an offensive purpose.

He's choosing the route to get out of the way of you to then find his next route. What does that do? Well, it disrupts his timing because now he might choose to go left around you. And because he chose to go left, the play was actually on the right side. Now, if you didn't do that, he would have been able to just choose where. he wants to go without any inhibition and now he'd be able to get there and his timing would be on. So the idea is you've got to get to him early. You don't need to necessarily make contact, but you need to take his line.

And once you take his line, you force him to go around you, you mess up his timing. In the offensive zone, one of the things that you want to do with him is while he's outside that space, you want to make contact with him. So you might just take his stick, for example, just lift his stick up off the ice. You might bump into him a little bit. You might do little things like that that are a little bit disruptive. And the reason why is because you're trying to affect, one, is timing. Two, he's reading where when he's not on the puck, he's deciding where he wants to go next.

If you like knock his stick or you bump into him or whatever, you are creating a distraction that is now not allowing him to hyper-focus on where he wants to move next. Next. To me, a lot of defending players like that is trying to get to them early. It's the same thing, only very different in a different way as McDavid. When do you want to get to McDavid to defend him on the rush? Well, you want to get him before the rush even starts. Before he winds up and starts sprinting to get up the ice, you should already have a contact on him or cut them off or force him to do something different so that his timing is off.

If you wait and let him spin around and run up the ice and then now as he's crossing your offensive blue line, that's the first time you want to force him to think about doing something else. That's a recipe for disaster. Now, Johnson's not that type of speedster. He's doing all the calculations are in his head and it's related to timing and all of those sorts of things. So you do things to disrupt his timing. And that's what if you want to kind of slow him down. And the same thing with Stankhoven. For me, Stancovin, he's so he's a menace

when he's off the puck. But you have to cut him off. So like when the puck gets dumped in, for example, and your D goes back and get it, the other D needs to cut him off and force him to go around to impact his timing so he can't get there when he wants to get there. And so now you're able, you know, you've provided a little bit more time for your partner. And now your partner can get the puck without having him all over him. And now he can make him more educated and better first play. So in all of these situations, the best time to be disruptive is before you need, before the play is starting to develop where a lot of times when we think about defending,

we think about defending at the puck. Like the play is now about to be made, and now we want to give the defensemen either credit or we want to torch them for poor play or poor behavior, when really the play should have been made three to five seconds earlier. And that's really when you want to be evaluating your defensive play against the line like that that's really on fire. Yeah, especially I think for the Oilers forwards in that series, right? because I think if they're leaving their defenders on an island against him, they're not going to be set up for success. They're going to have to be getting him up the ice, and that's going to be on the forwards.

And so it'll be interesting to see how they adjust to that. But, I mean, he's done this, we should say, against not only the two most recent Stanley Go champions, but two teams that pose a variety of different challenges defensively, and he's sort of unlocked both summarily along the way. So really interesting stuff. Do you have any other notes on Johnson here? I just have a lot of praise in my notes,

but I think technical stuff is interesting. One more thing on that whole concept is the other way to be disruptive with him and to knock him out of rhythm is to make them defend in the defensive zone early in the game. So the one thing that I was disappointed that the abs were not able to do was sustain offensive pressure early in games. And they allowed the Stars team to get in rhythm in general as a group. regardless of this particular line. And then all of a sudden, they're able to get their puck touches.

They get in the offensive zone. They're able to make some plays early. They get things moving. That's why, like, you know, you don't want to give, like the Oilers, for example, you don't want to give them a power play earlier in the early in the game. Why? Because now every one of their skilled players is going to touch the puck five or six times, and they're now in.

They're feeling good about the puck and they're in rhythm, et cetera. That's the same with their. with this line, one of the other ways is to just make them defend early in games, see if that will help get them off the rhythm. You combine controlling the puck with a little bit of this cutoffs and being disruptive. And I think you have a chance to put them in some uncomfortable spots. It just makes the timing just not quite right. And that might be a step that to me is the thing you're trying to be disruptive of is the timing with a kid like this Johnston who right now he's a he is a straw that's stirring the whole drink over there.

So you want to if you're going to impact anybody, it would be it would be this guy. So maybe take it to him a little physically, you know, get him concerned about other things. And you're doing that only with the idea of trying to disrupt his. his natural timing that he has right now. Yeah, especially for the Oilers who are a big time ozone possession team themselves, right? Like they love to have long shifts in there and cycling the puck and sort of wearing you down. The thing is, is the avalanche do too. And I think it's easier said than done because the stars don't really give up a lot of D zone time on their end.

And so winning that battle is probably going to be the determinant of that series. So that's going to be a really fun one to watch. Yeah, I just thought like we had to do this in between series. it's difficult to do it within the series itself. But after seeing that game three against Vegas, I had him down for 12 scoring chances in that game, which is a total I haven't ever really seen before. And then the game four against Colorado,

when they kind of put them away, they were two of the more signature individual performances so far this postseason. So I was like, Darrell and I got to break it down. And hopefully we did a good job of describing, I think, some of the concepts that you see on there,

why he's so successful and just why he's always open in high-danger areas. Darrell, this was great. I'm really glad we got to do this. I'll let you plug some stuff on the way out here because I know you've got your coaches workshop coming up, but also it's been a while since we chatted. So is there anything you want to tell the listeners?

Yeah, no, the coaches workshop, we're excited about it. It goes at the end of June in Naples, Florida. We're really excited about it again this year with the emphasis on teaching and impacting skill. And then on the heels of that, We get into our kids camps, which we're also very excited about as well. So if anybody wants to take a look at us and see it in person, that's where we're going to be. Awesome.

Well, keep up the great work, Daryl. Enjoy the conference finals. I'll be keeping tabs. And then whatever standout performance we see over this next round of games, I'm going to be calling you back. And we're going to be deep diving a player from the conference finals. So I'm really excited about that. I'm glad we got to finally do this again after a little bit of a break. Hopefully the listeners enjoy it.

Thank you for listening to us. And we'll be back soon with plenty of more of the Hockey Ocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.