The Hockey PDOcast - It’s Always Something With the Senators

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Graeme Nichols to work through everything that's gone wrong in Ottawa lately, and how the Senators can hope to fix it moving forward. This podcast was produced by Elan Chark.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.

Progressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey-Pediocast. My name is Dmitra Filippovich and joining me making his first appearance on the show, first of hopefully many. It's my good buddy Graham Nichols-Gram. What's going on, man? Not too much, Demetri.

How are you doing? Well, don't lie to me right out of the game. Not too much. There's a lot going on in your life as someone who covers the Ottawa senators. It's never a dull time, but in particular now, and that's why we had to have you on because there's a whole laundry list of topics, I guess, for us to get into today. You know what, though?

There's been so much like turmoil over the past like 15 years. Like I'm conditioned. Like this is the norm, you know? It's just, but yeah, it's, it's been quite the last few, two weeks. It's, especially for the new ownership, right? Like Michael Anlowers, you know, the honeymoon's over. He's finally starting to get, uh, why, some of the dregs of the mellick era finally cut up with the team a little bit now now that he's inherited the club.

And, yeah, he's dealing with the after effects now. I was going to say, I think it's awfully telling. And maybe it's just the people that I follow that are sense fans and people covering the team who have been around it for a while now are going to condition to it. But for any other organization, it feels like any one of these news stories off the ice would be like a whole, a whole thing. You'd be like, wow, that is absolutely crazy. And this is just like, I mean, it's obviously stunning, but also it's like, oh, just another kind of checkpoint along the way. We've become so used to it that it's always, it always feels like it's something we're kind of programmed to expect it at this point. And so to summarize the past week for the senators, in case you somehow haven't noticed that in our listening to the show, Shane Pinto gets suspended for 41 games for violating the league's sports gambling rules.

The team gets disciplined rather harshly for a botched trade that initially took place over a year and a half ago now. Thomas Shabbat on the ice fractures his hand and is out for four to six weeks. And the team has now lost four of its past five games after losing to the Kings last night. So I don't know, where do you want to start here? I guess we should talk about kind of the Dodonov timeline and how that all came together because it feels like that's the most recent thing. That's what everyone's talking about. And certainly there's a lot of moving parts to it.

Do you want to take it like all the way from the beginning and sort of break down how this all happened? Because I still think, well, it was like a 73 page report or something was given to the senators by the league, kind of breaking down how they came to their conclusion. Now obviously we're not necessarily privy to that. we did hear from the owner and there was a lot of interesting notes in that. But it still feels like there's some lack of clarity, I guess, for transparency in terms of how this all came together, sort of where it was botched in terms of the lines of communication and what the ultimate reasoning for this ever happening in the first place was. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. I mean, like,

the joke back of the day was Ottawa had a 112 page plan. It was the roadmap to Stanley Cup contention with the rebuild. And yeah, you mentioned that the senators got a 73-page investigative report from the league just for a trade. And that seems like a lot of details for something that, you know, it's just one simple event that can be just characterized as Ottawa assigned to Evgenidanov to a three-year contract. As part of this three-year contract, they gave him limited no-trade clause in which he could submit a list of teams every year of 10 teams that he could not be. traded to. He played one season for the Ottawa senators, was relatively ineffectual. He wasn't bad, but

he wasn't, you know, he wasn't what they paid for. And they decided to move on in the offseason. And Vegas took him on and moved Nick Holden and a third grant picked to Ottawa. And nobody batted an eye because Vegas was not on his no trade clause list. And then, you know, I

believe that season he played upwards of like 68 games, I think, before the trade deadline. And at the 2020 trade deadline, Vegas tried to turn around. and trade him to Anaheim, at which, at which point his agent said, whoa, whoa, whoa, guys, you cannot trade my client to Anaheim. They're on his no trade list. At which point, Vegas turned around and said, well, that's not true.

In our trade call with Ottawa, we were told that there was no trade list. And the reason why they believe that there was no trade list is because Ottawa said that Evgeny Dadov, whether rightfully or wrongfully, whether Ottawa deceived Vegas or were just plainly negligent and had no bookkeeping to that effect. Vegas never received the trade list from Ottawa. Ottawa said it was voided because he did not submit on time. And Datenov's agent provided evidence that they indeed did submit that trade list. At which case, the NHL rule that that trade was void.

The trade in question was John Moore and Ryan Kessler's LTIR contracts to Vegas for, I believe, dadden off in a second round, a conditional second round pick, I believe. And, you know, that's substantial in a sense that Vegas trying to clear cap room. They're trying to bring some of their high salary players back off the IR themselves so they could bolster the roster and create the cap space to do it. And these contracts would help them allow them to do that. And once that trade was voided, they were in tough. They were up against the cap ceiling.

And it was tough for them to feel the competitive lineup because of their situation. And they missed the postseason. It was the first time the franchise is, is, exists. that they missed the postseason. Obviously, they went on the win the cup last year or this past year. And, you know, onwards and upwards for them. But they were pissed. And rightfully so, like whether or not Ottawa willfully misled them or were just negligent. And for whatever reason, the information wasn't relayed properly from an assistant general manager to Pierre Dorian or however, however it happened on this trade call, he told Vegas that that no trade clause

did not exist. It was not valid. It had been voided. And this is where. we're at. And I don't blame Anaheim for being angry. I don't like, you know, they're in a rebuild. They want that second round pick. That's a highly, that's a highly covetable asset that they can use to bolster their farm system and build that thing back up over there. And for Vegas, I don't blame them for being mad either. You know, they were deceived. And it's taken a long time to play out. I think where things get really sketchy is that the league ruled in 2022 at the time that the investigation concluded, no teams were going to be punished for their roles. And, you know, everyone kind of thought that was the end of that. But recently, you know, a year and a half

later, as you mentioned, off the hop. They were pressured by Vegas to continue to look at this. And they came down with a heavy, heavy-handed discipline. Ottawa was going to forfeit a first-round pick. They get to decide after each of the lottery drafts, whether it's going to be a 2024 pick, a 2025 pick, or a 2026 pick. And it's a heavy-handed situation because there hasn't been any transparency from the league. We have no information as to why Ottawa believed.

that the list was voided. Like there's no detailing that. And I don't know if we'll ever get an explanation for what happened, which is unfortunate. But here we are. And Michael Ann Lauer has expressed frustration and disappointment with the league, with the Melnik estate, the sellers, and in his press conference when they fired Pyridorian on the other day.

They're all bloodied together at this point. Yeah, he expressed frustration with the fact that, he was left in the dark during the selling process. And at one point, he was made aware of it, but they said, hey, don't right. It's not a big deal. It's not going to be that punitive. And, you know, I think he rightfully came out in his comments and said, listen, like, you may not think a first round pick is a heavy price, but to me it is.

And it doesn't seem right that there was no disclosure. It doesn't seem right that there's no disclosure. Ottawa was being punished for failing to disclose the correct information to Vegas in this trade call. And then the league's turning around and saying, you know, well, we didn't disclose anything to you about this, but you're still going to pay the price for this. Well, one, and that was a great rundown. One note you did leave out in talking about the initial, the Donov contract that he signed with Ottawa, was that it was a very classic move on their part where it was a three-year deal at $5 million per

that was backloaded, right? It was 3.5 for the first year, which he wound up playing for the senators. And then it went up to escalate it to 5 and 6.5. and it became sort of a staple during those years for them where they would get players who essentially had a gap between their AAV on cap-friendly and the actual salary they were being paid by the team and then once the pendulum shifted the other way

they would look to get out from under that deal because they didn't want to pick up the tab on it, right? And so I think that's in terms of like the trade machinations and how this all came together from a timeline perspective, it didn't necessarily play a huge role or decisive role. But in terms of telling the story, I think it's just important for bookkeeping purposes. The other parts are, and maybe it speaks of this,

that it almost feels like another lifetime ago. It's a year and a half or whatever, but these days that is such a long period of time that I had to go back and jog my memory and remind myself of what was going on at the time. And it was like, oh, yeah, it was a surreal moment where it did Donov not only wound up staying on the Golden Knights,

but was having to play this key role for them all of a sudden in this late playoff push, which ultimately wound up falling short, but he actually played well for them during that time and was producing quite a bit in a scoring role. And so it was just surreal. And you mentioned why the ducks were annoyed obviously and why Vegas who it seems like was pushing for this the most was. I think part of it was, and it's been referenced kind of that embarrassment factor, right? Because I think at the time a lot of us were getting our jokes off about, oh, I can't believe like they fumble the bag here this badly. How do they not have their own bookkeeping in order? And they felt like it wasn't their fault at

all. And the other was obviously the on ice product in terms of they thought they were going to shed that $3 million and be able to activate their key players and all of a sudden got handcuffed as a result. So just wanted to note all that. I guess my questions in the fallout from this, I've got a couple of them here ranging in terms of severity. One is, did Dorian forget to file it? Or was it simply an issue of the senators just thought it wouldn't be a problem them and they could kind of get away with it because that's what I I don't understand. Was it like a lack of attention to detail or was it just pure incompetence? Like you know what I mean? Because I mean, both can be both being kind of viewed bad, especially with that type of role and responsibility

guiding an NHL organization. But I guess they sort of are viewed in a different lens depending on where you fall on it. Yeah. I think like one of the things that's occurred during the period or era in Ottawa is that a lot of people have been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because of the pressures from ownership because of the small nature of his staff. Like you're talking about one of the smallest front offices in the league. And I think you're bang on. Like I don't, I don't, I would hate to think that a general manager would maliciously withhold vital information to screw one of his colleagues on this half-hearted hope that it won't

come back to bite him in the ass. you know like i have a hard time believing that dorian would would make this deal and just hope down the road that you know yeah they just think there's a donald would change his mind and go along with it and yeah there's like a two-thirds chance that if he ever does request a trade he won't be said to one of the teams one of those 10 teams on his list um i would hate to think that someone would do that but i don't know i don't know what the motivations were i know like obviously as you mentioned he like he had a backloaded contract that's a lot of money there was 11 million dollars left on the books that Ottawa wanted to clear and reallocate towards other players.

Totally understand that. But if a guy was that desperate to clear the books and get that contract off the books, I would hate to think that a guy would do it maliciously. But I don't know who can speak to that. But obviously, one of the lines that came out of that press conference the other day before Michael Anlaw was like, those two teams that were angry, Vegas and Anaheim, wanted their two pounds of flesh. And they got it.

Pyradorian ultimately paid the price. this job and Ottawa was getting punished with a first round pick. And I think one of the weird kind of dynamics with this whole punishment thing is that moving forward, you're going to take away a 2004, 2025, or 2006 first round draft pick in one of those years. But in that time, Ottawa's new ownership. They're going to have an entirely new front office. The guys who are responsible for that era are gone. And Ottawa's still getting punished. So it's a weird kind of dynamic. And, you know, like Peter McTabish was the assistant general manager in 2020. He left that off season to go to Cortex hockey to become an agent out of this Montreal-based agency.

And I'm sure he was interviewed during this process, but he left abruptly. He resigned from his position that summer. I don't know if his resignation indicates that, you know, he played a role in what transpired in this trade call. Pierre McGuire, you know, he was the vice president. I think he was a senior advisor and vice president like player development. he left months after shortly after Eugene Melick's passing in March. He didn't stick around long. So anyone who was involved in that front office in that time frame, they're gone now.

So I don't know if you'll ever really truly get the answers that you're looking for. But just to circle back, if this was done maliciously with intent to deceive, that's horrible. And if that's the case, then I have a hard time believing that Pierodorian's ever going to have this kind of front office job again. Well, sadly, it's nothing new for the NHL because here in Vancouver, a big point of contention that everyone will remember was the league kind of did a similar thing, obviously, I guess, in a different circumstance, but after Ruea Lunga retired, right, they docked the Canucks with a north of $3 million recapture penalty for three years on their cap sheet during a time. Obviously, as time transpired, wound up being a big deal because the cap became flat. stop rising during a time when it was a new front office and also for a deal that when it was signed was legal under the CBA. And so they basically just rewrote the rules on the fly and then just assigned this seemingly

random punishment accordingly. And so this is nothing new for the league, but I understand how infuriating it could be when it happens again like this. And obviously as you compare it to the punishment that was doled out for the Blackhawks for a significantly more serious infraction and covering up sexual assault and not even taking away traffic and just basically what amounts to a slap on the wrist of what was a $2 million fine or something. It can be very frustrating and tying it all together to the league's lack of transparency and how

little we seem to know and how little people in the league themselves seem to know about a lot of these issues. Like this has all been kind of raised this past week during all these senator's stories. Yeah. And I think like, you know, even looking at like Ilya Kogelchuk signing, right, in New Jersey. And then new ownership arrived and they rescinded. They like they took back the punishment, right? Like there was going to be a recapture punishment for that kind of like retirement contract,

that backdiving contract where it's everything's fine. And it drove down as AAV in the later years. But like will the league do that? You know, I think that's one of the questions that we have to move forward. I think what Michael Annler did in his press conference where he raised that transparency issue and failure to disclose on the league's part. and the sellers part while he's going through this purchasing process. I think he did a masterful job of potentially opening up the door for negotiation and creating

leverage where Ottawa probably wouldn't otherwise have any. And maybe there is that opportunity to recapture this traffic down the road once a league kind of looks at this and says, you know what, we share some of the blame in this situation. I mean, it's a tough asset for any organization to lose, right? A first round pick is very valuable. but I think especially for one who A, hasn't made a pick in the top 60 in the past two years after trading their first rounder in back-to-back years. And then B, despite however you may feel about the brightness of the future and the young pieces in place, still, as we've seen earlier this season, isn't necessarily a lock to be a playoff team in any of those years, right?

Like you'd like to think that at some point, all of this will come to fruition, it'll come together and it'll actually, it'll pay dividends in terms of a team results perspective. But you never know. The Atlantic Division has a lot of good teams. It's very up in the air. The senators are struggling to start this season yet again, which has become kind of a hallmark of theirs as well under DJ Smith. And so just staring down the barrel of losing a valuable asset like that. I know people that were very stunned that the league would do that to a new owner, right?

Especially someone who just paid $950 million or whatever for this organization. And the press conference did ensue. I thought, you know, he positioned themselves very well. It was very calculated. I like the way he handled it and how forthright he was. Also, he was very articulate and well-spoken for someone who was very visibly and understandably befuddled by like how a business this large can seemingly act in such a Mickey Mouse manner. And Michael Anlar, this is this is the NHL for you. Get used to it.

Yeah, lots of arbitrary decisions with a lack of transparency, right? It's just, the league creates flexibility for itself to make decisions that don't necessarily make a ton of sense, but it's something that we've kind of grown accustomed to over the years. So this is the end of the Pierre Dorian era. And I think that the reason why I kind of raised that question earlier about whether it was incompetence or negligence or how we stand on it was, I think, regardless of your stance on it, it showed a lack of, I guess, attention to detail and kind of diligence that I think had become an unfortunate hallmark of, of that. regime and of that era and part of it is and it sort of hangs in the backdrop of all of this as you mentioned the ownership aspect of it right and how restrictive it was and how you basically had to sort of be compliant to these whims and restrictive financial situations and all that and I totally get it but just from like a diligence and business sense perspective I was always during this entire era

even the moves that I like kind of left wanting a bit more and it seems like you know there's a new owner now, there will be a new GM. I think we'll talk more about the coach. I imagine that will be the next domino to fall at some point here. I guess the encouraging thing for the Ottawa Senator is moving forward is that with all these new voices, it does seem like they're trying to kind of clear out some of this organizational rot that had been there and bring in a level of professionalism and like voices who are going to treat this as seriously as it needs to be. And that would be, you know, that is certainly a silver lining and it definitely a step in the right direction for the senators. Yeah, and it's weird to sit here today and you look at the vibe around Ottawa and it's like you look at the press conference,

they fired their general manager who's been here with the organization since like 2007. And, you know, he's been the general manager for the past eight years. And you look at the loss of a first round pick. Like that's a significant punishment. Yet here we are real like the vibe in Ottawa is that here we are talking about the owner and the general, current president of hockey operations and interim general manager and Steve Stuyos. The organization has not had too well-spoken, articulate and professional individuals to speak for this organization in a long time. For the first time in a long time, you're not embarrassed

or worried about what's going to come out of the mouths of these guys. And that's just something that we haven't had in such a long time. And as difficult as it is to see the organization move on, potentially lose the first round, pick down the road, I think there is that kind of light at the end of the tunnel that, okay, we finally put a broom to this situation. And I guess like the thing that it's kind of interesting to me and like one of the weird dynamics of this whole situation is like people are going to be reminded of this one incident with Pyridorian, this, this Dadov failed trade, trade bungle. But people forget about all the missteps along the way. And I think you touched upon it really well. I think like there hasn't been a calculated, diligent approach to

running this organization for a very long time. You know, they've relied on third-party analysts companies to provide them with their info. They never really had a hockey analytics department in-house until this past fall when the organization hired Sean Tierney. And there just, there hasn't been the checks and balances. The organization is always kind of operated on the whims of the owner and the impulsive decision making of the general manager. And I think it's worked adversely against them for the past number of years.

And I think you can see that. I think the legacy of peer door. era is the success of the people that they've drafted in the top five. You're Jake Sanderson, you're Tim Stoots, look, you're Brady Kachuk. And I think like the success and development of those players has overshadowed everything else that Pierodorian's kind of done. And I think if you look back over his tenure, there's just so many glaring mistakes. And you don't need revisionist goggles to look back at it.

And it's just, it's something that nobody's really ever taken him to task for because it was all kind of fit under like the, this narrative of the rebuild. We have to be patient. We're building towards something good because we have these great young players in it. I'm not disparaging those great young players. I think those are great foundational building blocks to build around. And the organizations found some talent in like Ridley Greg, Shane Pinto. Drake Batherson was a good mid-round fine.

But I think if you look at this team's volume of draft picks that they've acquired through that rebuild, that essentially tore down a roster that went to the 2017 Eastern Conference Finals. I think if you look at that, look at all the draft picks that they've had and all the draft picks that they've wasted on bungled trades for like Matt Murray, Derek Stepan, Alex DeBrincat. And, you know, you're right. Like, Tyler Boucher was a top-tad pick. He has yet to play a game with the organization at this point. I believe he's still injured in Belleville right now. He's had a hard time checking the injury bug. But they've lost their last two first round picks and trades involving Jake Chakran and Alex DeBrincad. And now they're at risk of losing another one. I think, you know, if you're

looking at an organization, it's missed the postseason for this long, this thing should be a lot further head than it is. And the failures of this general manager to address the depth of this, the quality of depth of this roster, the quality of depth of the blue line. It's just the systemic failures of this front office. I've caught up with this team at times. And it's, you know, it's been one step forward with some of the guys and then two steps back because this team just has this struggle to identify quality talent that can be acquired efficiently. And it's just, it's been really frustrating from a fan standpoint to watch that happen. But at the same, time. There is that optimism still because you have these good, good young players who've been

signed to long-term extensions. I think if you're going to give Dorian credit for anything, it's drafting and developing these top five picks and then, you know, extending Brady Kitchak first. And then that kind of set the bar for all these young players to follow. They all signed extensions of their own. And it's kind of set up the franchise well in that regard. But, you know, it's the pressure on insulating these guys with quality talent is something that the organization has struggle to do. And it's going to be interested to see how that changes under a front office that continues to be beefed up. Which is a massive development for them because there was a long era there, as you all know, of just countless homegrown stars that would leave for a variety

of reasons. But the common factor being just them being disgruntled and disappointed in everyone being wondering what went wrong, right? And so for all these young players to be drafted, perform well, and then sign up to stay for a long time is a big deal moving forward. I'm glad you brought up Sean Tierney there being hired as a director of analytics because it was always ironic to me that seemingly, you know, whether it was them actually being from that region or being fans of the team, there were just so many of the top voices in that analytic sphere publicly that were in some fashion linked to the senators. and then you had this organization that's just for whatever reason seemed to be unwilling to embrace it and really dive deep into that. And so that would be an encouraging thing moving forward as well. And yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head.

I mean, not only the players, but the voices in the organization, like how the sheer volume of people that just like left under mysterious circumstances, speaking of black of transparency and everything there. I don't know. The other note that I wanted to make is, and I don't know if you feel this way, but every fan base has it, but it feels like with the senators in particular, just the amount of noise that always seemed to like emanate kind of through back channels of like stuff that was happening in the way of rumors that ultimately wound up being substantiated

actually, but like came out as if it was like a leaky ship and you could just pick up pieces here and there and put the picture together yourself. That's obviously not a sign of a healthy organization. And so I think tightening that up as well moving forward would be a big. big development for the senators. And hopefully that is sort of what's going to happen with all these new people they've brought in. Yeah, absolutely. I think Michael Ann Loward touched upon that in his press conference the other day, right? Like he mentioned the Shane Pinto and situation and just how proud he was that the confidentiality and privacy of Shane Pinto was respected. It was a very tight

circle that had that information and never really got out, right? And even in the aftermath, like, and for good reason, like there hasn't been any transparency. We have no idea what happened, with Shane Pinto. All we know is that he had a registered betting account with one of these partners of the NHL, one of these gambling sites. He had an account. Someone else, whether it was a bookie friend, whomever,

had access to it. And we don't know any other details beyond that. We just know he probably didn't bet on hockey. We can't prove that he did. And something happened, but we have no idea what. And I think they've done a great job at just keeping the details in-house.

Nothing's leaked out. I don't Again, like I don't know if we're ever going to get any transparency or find out what exactly happened in this situation. All right, Graham, let's take our break here while we still can. And then when we come back, we'll pick the conversation back up. We'll talk a little bit more about centers off the ice, but then really key in on the center is on the ice and what we've seen from them so far. The season, you're listening to the Hockey-Pedio cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio

network. All right, we're back here on the Hockeyedio cast, joined by Graham Nichols. We're talking about the Ottawa senators to Graham. We were talking a lot about kind of off the ice and some of organizational stuff because that was a big deal this week. But now let's switch gears and talk more on the ice and what we've seen from the senators. And before we went to break, we were sort of talking about what a development for this organization being able to retain their young talent was. And now you look and I think the final sort of positive of the Dorian era in terms of what he leaves in his wake is you've got Chuck at 8.25 or 8.205. million for his age 22 to 28 seasons. Tim Stozla 8.35 for his age 22 to 29 seasons. Jake

Anderson 8.05 for his age 22 to 29 seasons. Ad Norris and Shabbat in there as well. And that's obviously a big deal. I guess the natural question to follow and what I think we're going to get an answer to pretty soon is going to be whether they have the right coach in place to get the most out of those players, right? Because there's been a lot of things you could point to, I think, that have gone wrong in Ottawa in ice the past couple years, but just stylistically, when you watch this team play,

comparing the type of personnel they have to the way they play and the results they get, there's always been kind of an incongruity for me, I guess, especially the past calendar year or so, where it just doesn't seem like it fits together. How do you feel about that?

I think that's bang on. From what I see, there's a lot of dump of chase hockey, and they don't necessarily have the personal upfront to do that effectively. I think there's a lot its talent. I think there's a lot of skill up front. But just in terms of apocry, you know, pressure system,

just banging crash and create turnovers that way and put pressure on the opposing defense. Like, I just don't, stylistically, I just don't see it for what Ottawa has, you know? And I, you know, just looking at this past off season, I think one of the biggest weaknesses for this team over the past number of years has been the two-way play of its forward group. Obviously, the blue line's been a huge massive issue over the past like four or five years, but they addressed that last year at the trade downline with Jake Chicker. Coming into the season, Ottawa,

it looked like they had a really strong top, top four. But I can get into the stylistic fit issues that I have with that maybe a little bit later. But I think once that blue line was bolstered, I think the attention has to start swinging to what is this collective group up front doing defensively for you? And I think that's been kind of like one of the four adjustments

that this team has made, even just in their player acquisition. And I think, like, you know, you look at the acquisitions of Vladimir Tarasanko and Dominic Kubolique in the offseason. I think, like, both guys are obviously renowned for their offensive prowess at being able to finish plays with their finishing skills. But, like, neither player has ever been renowned for being a good defensive player. And you look at Ottawa's issues up front, like, aside from, like, Clodjeru and Kim Schloss is on the upswave defensively, his numbers have improved. Josh Norris, same thing. But, like, aside from those guys up front, like, their top six is a renown.

for the defensive aptitude at all. And deathwise, same thing. They just don't have a lot of good two-way players. The Kubolique and Teresanko acquisitions kind of exacerbated that a little bit. And it's a little frustrating because you can't win at key pivotal times just playing offensive hockey. You have to be able to win tight games when teams do not afford you space. and just one of the concerns for me is they have never been able to really generate offense

off their defensive turnovers and just creating offensive play in their own zone. It's just it's always been, you know, a turnover happens within the defensive zone. And one of the Ottawa's forwards will fly the zone, look for a break up pass. Obviously that puts a lot of pressure on the defensemen on the other team and everything else. But like it seems like a lot of was, many of Ottawa's chances are just, like one and done chances. And I think if you look at Ottawa's underlying stats this year, they kind of echo that. Their team finishing is really strong.

But if you look at their expected goals for the shot and gold data, it's just they're towards the bottom third of the league in almost every category except for finishing. And it's kind of bolstered by their really inflated shooting percentage. It is. Yeah. They're third in 515 scoring the 20th and expected goals generated 25th in high danger chances generated. And to make the point of the dump and chase first.

kind of playing a more open puck possessing style, their 20th in rush chances as a team. And you mentioned the type of players they brought in and sort of the direction they're moving in, that doesn't really make sense for the way their coach wants them to play and the way he has them playing. And that is concerning to me, right? Because in theory, you have these players with young, fresh legs

that should be able to play fast, that should kind of be okay getting into this track meet back and forth setting. And certainly there's going to be times where you want to be more defensively responsible, responsible and structured and be able to create offense in different ways, as you're saying, but just purely from kind of maximizing those individual strengths, especially of players like a Tim Stutzlow, who's your best forward, or most dangerous offensive forward, they haven't really done them any favors in that regard, right? You're totally right.

There's way too much dumping and chasing, and it just doesn't really make sense for, for the personnel you have, and that's why you keep coming back to the coach. And the issue, the biggest issue is, all right, DJ Smith's supposed to be this defensive coach, right? He used to be a defenseman. You're doing all of this stuff so that you can be, have a more structured two-way game and better defensively. Well, you look and the underlying defensive metric this year have completely cratered as well,

not they were great to begin with, but they're amongst the league worst in pretty much every 5-1-5 defensive category as well, aside from goals against where their goal that thing has been relatively solid. And so what are you sacrificing for, right? It's not like it's actually paying dividends in any way. So you're kind of handcuffing yourself without anything to really show for it. And that's incredibly frustrating to me. And there's been no evolution. It's been a consistent theme that's occurred for years. Like Ottawa, even like, well, even dating back to like the Ghi Boucher, it's always been a high event hockey team where they're happy to trade chances and trying to score you at six to four. That's how they've been trying to win games. And obviously,

they have enough firepower up front in the top two lines to try and get that done, especially as these kids developing and get better and more confident with time. But, you know, at some point, and this even speaks to, like, Thomas Shabbat's development, like you worry, you worry that as time goes on, that bad habits creep in. There's a reinforcement of bad habits. And you're not being taught to support the puck in the defensive zone. I think if you watch Ottawa play consistently, one of the things that you see is, like, defensive breakdowns happen because of, you know,

good skill teams are constantly moving, constantly rotating. And Ottawa's defensive coverage just breaks down so fast. They lose track of men. They're not switching off properly. And guys get open all the time. And it's just a struggle of adjustments. And it's a failure to recognize detail and coverage and what teams are trying to do against them.

And it's just it's so frustrating to watch. And it's just at times you're frustrated by the lack of puck support. but guys aren't helping their defensemen out down low. Short passes aren't available because guys are flying the zone. There's just a lack of, there's just a lack of puck support. And it's, and it's not just something that's happened this year. It's been something that's been reoccurring over the past like six, six, seven, eight years.

And it hasn't improved. And it's at, at some point, you want to see that structure come in and you wonder if DJ Smith's going to pay the price for it at some point. Well, at 515, the only teams that give up a higher rate of expected goals against are the San Jose Sharks in Chicago Blackhawks. The only team that gives up more high danger chances against in a permanent basis are the San Jose Sharks. And unfortunately, I just did a mailbag show with Ryan Lambert, and we spent a good chunk of it talking about how the San Jose Sharks are the worst team in NHL history. And so that is not great company to be keeping and certainly highly alarming. and you wonder, you know, on the one hand, the shooting percentage that's kind of propping up

the scoring right now is a nice change of events because last year, I believe there were 32nd and 515 shooting percentage. And so having a nice little bit of regression and going back the other way is certainly a blessing. But on the other hand, we know how precarious it is to rely on that. And if that levels out a little bit, then all of a sudden things can get pretty rough. And the other issue is that if you look at the top three players on this team in 515, I've expected goal share this season.

They are Ridley, Greg, Thomas Chavotte, and Artem Zub, and all three of those guys are also out of the lineup right now, right? And with obviously varying timelines, but that is obviously alarming as well. I guess the one silver lining is in terms of getting healthy and kind of figuring this thing out. I believe they only have nine games on the schedule in the entire month of November, right? So it comes at a pretty good time in terms of exposure from a workload perspective. but also it's clearly something that's going to have to be figured out and sort it out and hopefully those guys can get back into the lineup sooner rather than later.

Oh, absolutely. I think eight of those games are home games as well. So Ottawa will have the opportunity to match up as best as they can. And if you're looking at a positive from that perspective, there it is. But the loss of Shabat's huge. But it's funny because I keep going back to the blue line and Jake Chikrin was supposed to stabilize. I think a lot of people made excuses for this team's defense. defensive coverage over the past number of years saying, listen, Ottawa's blue line's

getting exploited. We're going to address it. It took years to address it, but they finally did with Shikrin. And it's created a situation. I like, I like the addition. I think he's a good player. I think he's a valuable player for this organization, but he's also a left shot defenseman. I think one of the things that Pier Dorian has kind of struggled to do during his tenure. And I don't want to get back too much on the management side. But it's, he's kind of been like, historically, he's always been a bit of a name chaser. He's always targeting the biggest name that's on the market. And they've made plays on these guys. Well, there was Matt DeShane, Shikran, whomever, down the road. And Shikram was supposed to be this kind of bolstering presence on the

back end. But I think one of the things that gets overlooked at times is like, okay, you have three great left shot defensemen is Shabbat, Shikran, Jake Sanderson. Someone has to play their offside. And Thomas Shabbat is that guy. He's been that guy this year. And I think if you look at his metrics, his isolated defensive impacts on like hockey biz, he's given up a disproportionate volume shots on his side that he's supposed to defend. And it's good players, are they the right fit? And what kind of complications are being made to the lineup because of the people that you're bringing in? I think on the blue line, it just, it hasn't materialized the way that they were hoping for yet. And obviously, injuries have complicated things. I think the loss of Artem Zub's been huge.

Losing Shabbat for four to six weeks is going to be painful. But it's just, It's just one of those things. Like, Peridorian is brought in guys who are supposed to help make this team and get it to that next competitive playoff level. But are they that have they been the right fits? And I'd argue that no, not necessarily. Yeah. I'm trying to move forward, Graham, and you're just dragging us back. I mean, you could do a full show on Peridorian, but I wanted to sprinkle in some stuff looking ahead as well, particularly in the ice.

Yeah, and you mentioned those are certainly big losses. And I mentioned the Ridley-Grig one as well. we'll see on his timeline, but in this class, well, first off, the Owen Senators 2020 class, right, with him being part of that Sanderson and Stutzel one being overshadowed in that way as the 28th overall pick, I believe, but also in the scheme of this year's Calder class as well, where there's so many flashy names and awesome young players, you quietly look up and it's like, all right, seven points in nine games, I think six of them at 5-1-5, he's been their best player from a 5-15 metrics perspective.

They're dominating when he's been on the ice and certainly doesn't have necessarily the workload of what some of the other proxics may have, but still for him to be doing that in his first entrance into the league was very impressive and particularly from a defensive perspective. And all of a sudden removing that from the lineup as well, there's just fewer answers to the questions that are lingering. Oh, absolutely. And I think, you know, if you want to compound the loss of Greg, it's like one of the best defensive players on the team last year at the four positions.

with Shane Pinto. And he's unavailable to the team for the first 41 games of the season. You can't sign him right now and play him, unfortunately. And, you know, that's the quality of depth at the bottom of the lineup that just hasn't been there in recent years. But, like, really, Greg's been exceptional. You know, you're talking about the second leading goal score or the second leading score on rookie scoring right now. And just as good as he's been offensively contributing, he's been more impactful on the other side of the puck. He's been everything that you could ask for, hardworking, diligent player. he's a great building block for the future. It's just how do how can you continue to insulate

these guys and continue to add those good quality depth guys to the lineup? And I don't know in his absence if Ottawa has those guys readily available to them. So how do you how do you foresee this plan out? I mean, the results are one thing, but just purely because we talked about how you know, you're bringing in all these new voices into our organization. There's obviously going to be now new decision makers as well. We'll see what happens with the GM surgeon who winds up coming in or whether Steve Steyos takes on to Bruntov it for now. But do you think it's a matter of kind of just getting your sea legs and allowing things to settle down for a minute before addressing the coaching thing?

Because obviously, you know, slow starts, as we mentioned, have become a recurring theme for this organization. And as we've seen over the years in this three-point system, as the year progresses, it can be really, really challenging to dig out of those holes. And so all of a sudden, there's a bunch of pressure. You're looking at a seventh season of potentially not making the playoffs years after the rebuild was proclaimed to be over. And so it's a tricky spot where you don't necessarily want to punt on another season

or give away games when they can wind up costing you. But also you need a bit of runaway here as well because you can only have, make so many moves at one time of such consequence. No, it's bang on. I think if you want to take that one step further, I think like, you know, based off what we know about NHL data and the primes of NHL careers, like the prime, the prime offensive years for a player is 22 to 27 years old.

And you hate to punt on these seasons where like Ottawa's Young Corps is in that age or in that golden age. You don't want to just waste this as another developmental year. But, you know, if they continue to fall out of it, if they continue to drop games during the, during this November stretch. It's going to be hard. It's going to be hard to see what they do.

Obviously, like Kubolik and Tarasanko would be one year guys, they would probably have no trouble moving. Like, Terraseco's had a good start offensively to his career. He's putting up the counting stats that teams like to trade for. He would probably be easy to move, but he has a no trade clause himself. But historically, like Ottawa is historically always started slow. Very, very slow.

Terrible November's. They always find a way to bounce back. As soon as you write this team off, they start winning games. and winning more games and then kind of getting themselves back in the mix and then every spring we get excited and you care about carrying that momentum into the following season and then the cycle just repeats.

But I think like even if they don't reach the postseason, I'm hoping that they crawl back into the postseason picture. I think they can hang with a lot of the teams in the Atlantic Division. I think they can give a lot of teams runs for their money when they are healthy. If you bring in another coach who teaches them some more disciplined instruction in the defensive zone and they do a better job and puck support. I think they can make some waves. But there's so much pressure on DJ Smith right now,

especially after Dorian got fired. Everyone's kind of waiting for the shoe to drop. And if they continue to drop games and lose the way that they have been lately, it's probably only a matter of shine. Like it's really hard to change players because the cap system and, you know, teams being set on the roster so early in the year, I think like the easiest change for this team would be to fire their coach and look for some kind of spark that way. So I could see that happen. but I think even if they don't make the postseason and they don't make a push, I think the best thing that can have for this team is he teaches some responsible defensive two-way play.

And as a collective, they have to get better in that regard. There's been too many years where it's just high event hockey, chasing the score, trying to run up the score. This team has to get better. And it might not necessarily translate to the more entertaining hockey. But it's responsibility is something that has to be taught to these guys and accountability as well. Well, I know that especially at the start of the tenure, maybe the objective or ambition of the organization was different than it may be recently, but it's remarkable to think that

DJ Smith is currently the seventh longest tenured head coach in the NHL, right? So it's like year five, but year five for five years for an NHL coach is a very long period of time. So I will be very curious to see how this unfolds and what the next dominoes to fall are. Graham, this is a blast. I'm glad we got to finally get you on the show and check in and catch up. I'll let you plug some stuff on the way out, let the listeners know where they can find you and what you've been up to. You can find me on X at Graham Nichols, G-R-A-E-E-N-C-H-O-L-S. I have a substack g-nichols.g-nickles dot substack.com. Yeah, and that's about it. You can find me anywhere.

Any social media platform. Awesome, man. Well, on the show, we still call it Twitter. So people should go find you on Twitter. Thank you to everyone for listening to us. If you enjoyed today's show, go smash that five-star button, wherever you listen to the PDOCast, leave a positive review. All of it's greatly appreciated. And we'll be back on Monday with more shows. So that's it for another week here, the Hockey PDOCast.

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