The Hockey PDOcast - Just How Bad Are the Sharks, and Many More Mailbag Questions

Episode Date: November 4, 2023

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Ryan Lambert to answer an interesting medley of mailbag questions from the listeners. Topics include Byfield's promising start to the season, historical perspective on how bad this version of the Sharks is, the future outlook for teams either over or underperforming their underlying numbers, and a whole lot more.If you'd like to participate in future editions of the mailbag, you can do so by signing up for the PDOcast's Discord server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedocast. My name is Dimitri Philipovich and joining me as my good buddy, Ryan Lambert, R.L. What's going on, man? I'm chilling. Going to see Macklin-Celabrini in Boston University against North Dakota tonight. It's going to be a good one. That's very exciting. Well, we'll talk more about Celebrini here in a second with one of our questions. Today the plan is to answer your mailbag questions from the listeners. We solicited them on Twitter. Got a lot of good ones. The listeners always come through with these,

but it feels like they really stepped up this time. I think we got at least like 20 or 30 that I think in any typical mailbag session would qualify as good ones. So we'll see how many of them we can get through and have some fun with it. Okay, here's the first one. Your pal Dan asks, Curious where your outlook is on Quentin Byfield, tantalizing player, and I can't figure out why summoning.

the industry are down on him? Well, I can figure out why some in the industry are down on it. He scored the 10th goal of his career last week, I think, and, you know, he's played like a hundred plus games in the NHL. That's why people are down on it. And also, I would say, because they went out and got Pierre-Luc Dubois to, like, kind of gum up the center-depth works for him. So it made people probably feel like they don't have a lot of confidence that this guy can,

you know, take that next step and we need to go out and get some extra insurance. That would be my guess. People really just want immediate gratification, right? No one wants to wait. What is he? 21? Well, that's the crazy thing. He's 21, like all the way through the season.

I think he turns 22 like in August or something. I'm looking at his page now. You're correct. Yeah. On the great website elite prospects, I'm sure. And he still, as you mentioned, he was under a hundred. 100 NHL games heading into this season. So while he was drafted three years ago, he obviously threw a variety of things with injuries and ailments, like didn't actually get to play that

full time, right? So I think that's important to consider here in terms of his development. And people are really obsessed with this idea of like, well, he was drafted as a center, but now they have all these guys with the addition of Dubois and De No and Kopitar and they re-sign extended Kopitar. So what's he going to play? And it's like, I don't know, him campaigned copatar, even if he's playing on that wing is a pretty awesome line. They're dominating this season. They have 56% of the shots, 57% of the chances, 60% of the goals, like, they're really good. And it doesn't matter to me what position he's technically playing because they're kind of like used, like they use him as the F1. He's the first guy into the zone. They utilize his speed to go in there and cause havoc and

just kind of bear down on defensemen like a locomotive and he forces turnovers. And so it doesn't really matter. And if anything, he's kind of thrived. a winger this year, he's shown like he's using that frame and size finally to leverage it as an advantage for himself and he's winning battles along the board and creating there. So, yeah, he looks really good, especially the past couple games. I think he's really turned it on. And so it's a pretty exciting development because his team's loaded. And if he starts actually finally channeling a lot of that offensive potential, like it's just another weapon in their arsenal. Yeah. And obviously the Kings are a team that was in need of speed over the last, uh,

two or three years. And, you know, this doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to be able to win a sprint against everybody. But this kid's enormous and fast and offensively gifted. Like, like I said, I can see why people would be down on him coming into the year. And I would say that, you know, he's, he's answering a lot of questions, but it's only 10 or 11 games or whatever he's played so far this year. So maybe, maybe you'd like to see more of him. But, you know, I think, that if he can get to, not that points are everything, certainly, but if he can get to 40, 50 points this year, I don't, I don't know that anybody's going to be looking at him and saying, oh, actually, you know what, this is a problem. Yeah, well, he's got seven and ten so far,

and six of them have come in the last five games. A lot of those are second assists, though. I will point that out. They are, but I really like, if you, if you, you watch them play, it's really coming, like, in the in the rhythm of like i guess their offense right for sure yeah he's not like passing the puck in his own zone and then camp pays carrying it down goes to the bench yep yeah exactly like he's he's creating especially off the wall like it really kind of part of that motion offense uh to your point nch l edge has a 98th percentile in a max speed this year in 95th percentile it bursts over 20 miles per hour which is just freakish for a guy that massive and so he's really using those skills this year and and that playmaking is flourishing

too. He had a dynamite setup for Kempai last night against Ottawa, and he just like based a wide open net. And so I think the points are going to come. And yeah, this king team, rocks. I keep talking. Yeah, but I think it's warranted. They have 16 different goal scorers this year. They lead the league in 5-1-5 scoring. Their games are averaging 7.2 goals for and against combined this year. Like, they just play a really fun, fast-paced brand of hockey, and there's been a ton of goals so far because their goaltending hasn't been very good and also because they have a lot of weapons and so I don't see what there isn't alike like like if you're not tuning into them yet you're really missing out 100% I watched a good chunk of that game against Ottawa last night they

were so fun yeah okay windy 16 asks seeing how good jeremy swayman has been so far for Boston this year I remember your idea of buffalo and other team like that off for shooting him in the summer did you hear anything about a potential team making a move like that It's so weird to me that he just signed a great deal for the Bruins. Well, Wendy, RFA's in this league do not have a lot of leverage. And so he pretty much, I mean, he wound up, I think, he got that, whatever, 3.45 for one year from a third party arbitrator after they filed. I don't know. What do you think about this?

What do you think about Swamen? What do you think about that situation? Because obviously the Bruins this summer, this past summer, were pretty, they had their hands tied financially, right? they had very little wiggle room. That's why they essentially filled all their roster with a bunch of, you know, one-year league minimum deals. And they're 9-0-1 this year. And a big part of that is the goaltending.

And it feels like whether the option was there or not, a lot of teams around the league probably missed out or messed up by kind of letting them get away with this again. Well, I think the other thing about that is you do, you know, look, everybody says this. But you get to keep in mind the cap. was basically flat and so many teams are right up against it that the thing people forget about offer sheets, I feel like, is the player has to want to sign it, right? You can't just go, well, we'll give you $3 million, $3.45 or whatever you just said the number was. And we'll give you that money, but for like four years. First of all, the Bruins would happily match it. But

second of all, like, why would he as a player want to feel like, you know what? I, I'm actually going to, I'm going to jump to Buffalo unless they absolutely blow his doors off with an offer, which they can't, which I don't think most teams in the league were in a position to do. Like Arizona could, I guess, but like I don't feel like they were going to do it. So it's tough. Yeah, that's a good point. And everything I do here is he's a big time vibes guy and he loves the vibes in his current situation. And he genuinely wanted to stay. and like he turns to what he turns 25 this year I get there was a bit of skepticism still

because he had what under 90 NHL games under his belt prior to entering this season right so it was still like relatively I guess unimproven or fresh in terms of at this level but I I think now we can you know at the risk of your goal and it can be very volatile and things can change very quickly at the position he looks pretty darn good to my eye so I thought good, man. I think she's very good. I'm going to say this, though, how many goalies at 24, 25 years old that have 190 NHL games? That's true. There probably are many. Yeah. I don't know the answer off the top of my head. But that, you know, and again, I hate to be just always going. Now, when I saw this guy in college hockey, but when I saw this guy in college hockey, you were just like,

well, I mean, the sky's the limit for this kid. Like, he was on, frankly, bad main teams for a few years. and routinely the best goalie I would see all season. So, you know, like he's just done it that he did it in Providence too for the brief stint he spent there if I'm remembering right. And so it's just like, yep, some goalies have it. And he has it. And it's that simple. So, you know, Rilins would not be in the business of letting this kid walk for nothing.

No, I do think they seriously explored or at least entertained the idea of trading both him and Allmark this summer though. Or at least just like tried to figure out what would make sense in that regard because they had so little money to work with to actually fill out a roster. And so it was like, okay, if we can get a good offer here and kind of make the money work, I will at least consider it.

I don't think they ever actually went that far down the line with it. And now they're in a pretty good spot as well because swimming's going to be an RFA again next summer. I think at that point, Allmark's deal will essentially be expiring. He'll be on the final year of it. And it'll only be owed like $3.5 million or something. So if they do want to explore a trade of Allmark next summer, regardless of what happens this year,

I think that'll become much more palatable for a lot of teams and doable. So yeah, I mean, these are their goals against so far this season in 10 games, Ryan. 1-2-1-2-1-0-4-1-2. And that four, they were like less than two minutes away from leaving it with one goal against, and then Anaheim just scored three goals late, including in overtime. Yes, that's right. And so the other thing that's amazing is, because of these two guys, they're essentially splitting the workload entirely down the middle right now.

They've both played five of them. Allmark is a 945 save percentage, five goal save above expected. Swayman, 954, 7.5 goal sale above expected. And here's the wildest ad for you. They've combined to stop 191 of 191 shots on goal from outside the slot. They have not given up a bad goal yet this season. You can't. And, you know, I think if you look at most teams in the league and how,

they spend money on goal tending. Who's getting better value over two years for $8.5 million? It's unbelievable. Like they just put their goalies in such a position to succeed and they're two really good goalies anyway. You know, again, what I am given old mark the vets in the last year, I probably wouldn't have. But, you know, he definitely played at that level and there was no.

No reason to expect he will continue playing at that level when he gets to play behind McAvoy and Lindholm. Yeah. Oh, it's not an og against him at all. He's just not the best goal at his own team. But that's, I say that as Jeremy Swaven's number one fan. But, yeah, I had Kevin Woodley on earlier this week, and he was like, he made the point of, you know, the defensive issues for Edmonton are one thing. But also, it's like, Campbell and Skinner, you can't necessarily rely on them to bail them out once they do make those mistakes, right? And it's like, well, those guys are making

7.6 billion combined. That's pretty close to the ballpark of what you just said for all Mark and Swateman. I think for that price, you probably should be able to at least get bailed out every once in a while. Once in a while, sure. When Boston does, they haven't been quite as good defensively this year, certainly, understandably so. Those guys have bailed them out. So, yeah, they are pretty darn good. Okay. MV asks, and we got a few of these. Someone actually included a screen grab went the extra mile of a quote from Nico Sturm last night saying this is as bad as it gets after San Jose's 10-1 loss and the question was is this in fact as bad as it gets but MV asks has there been a

team as bad as this year of Shark's team? I'm going to ask this question I have no way of looking up this answer. Is there a team this late in the season that gave up as many goals in one game as they have scored all year. Can't be. I mean, we're almost a month. It's impossible. Right. It's impossible. So, you know, they've scored 10 goals in in 10 games and they gave up 10 goals last night. This is un- And even beyond that, okay, you know,

they're getting all the bad bounces at both ends of the rank. Sure, fine. I wrote about this last weekend. They have, they are on pace to shatter the all-situations expected goals for percentage, like low light in whatever, since 2007-08. Like to not just beat it, to shatter it. A couple of teams were in like the 39 range, like 39 point whatever. And right now, or I haven't looked this morning, but as of this past weekend, they were at like 34%. It was unbelievable how bad these numbers were.

Really. I mean, I, and the crazy thing is, As bad as all of those goal numbers are that you referenced, like McKenzie Blackwood has actually been pretty good for them this year. Absolutely. And if they were getting truly terrible goaltending as well, like it could be worse. I know it's staggering to even fathom that as a realistic possibility, but it really could.

I mean, Mackenzie Blackwood, it's like the Simpsons Monkey Paw scenario, right? Where he's like, all I want is to get another chance to be a starter in the NHL. And it's like, all right, well, you're going to be a start. a San Jose, bud, and you're going to get starts there. And in his five and a half games, he's faced 112 shots from the slot, which is over 20 a game. I mean, it's just staggering to consider the types of shots are giving up the volume of them. And there's a bunch of other questions we got here. It's like, how many games can the sharks realistically expect to win this season? Another one was like, what is it going to take for the sharks to win a game? I mean, it's hockey,

right so as we saw i mean they almost won a game against the aves this year early on where mackenzie black one had like 50 saves and so you're gonna have these nights where the goalies just hot other team can't score and i just find it impossible to believe they're gonna win less than 10 games this season but it really seems hard to come together like put together a blueprint or a formula for how they're actually going to win those games at this point based on the way these first ten have gone yeah i you know They're 10 games into the season. They have one point in the standing.

Yeah. And they're lucky to have gotten it. Totally. And like you say, they'll win 10, 15 games. Like that's just hockey, you know. What do they say in baseball, like put yourself down for 80 wins and 80 losses and then everything else is like that's what determines how good you are? It's kind of the same thing in the NHL. going to win 20 games in this league. Like the worst team's imaginable fall backwards into 20 games

or 20 wins and maybe, you know, shootouts, overtimes, whatever. But this team might be the exception to the rule, honestly. Yeah, because even like, you know, like last year's Ducks team was an abomination on so many levels, but they had like legitimate NHL talent on it still and that's what we made it frustrating. I think even that 2016-17-Av team, which is propped up as one of the worst teams ever because their goal differential and point total also had like a significant amount of talent on their team compared to this sharks club yeah i guess that 2019 20 20 red wings team right before covid hit and the season got stopped short had 17 wins in 71 games and like a 34% cool share right and i remember there was i was i was keeping track this at the time there was like

five coaches has gotten fired in between their wins that year And none of those coaches were their own coach. Like it was like, it was a season for the ages. And this shark's team feels so, so much worse. So they're going to obliterate it. Yeah, for sure. By the way, I realize before people get mad, it's, you're going to win and lose 60 games, naughty.

Of course, they only play 162 in major league baseball. So that was me doing the math. There you go. Well, I was told there'd be no math. I mean, the 92, 93 season, I was one year old at the time. So I wasn't a, I don't really remember it very far. fondly, but the Sharks had 11 wins in 84 games that year. Right.

And the Senate expansion senators had 10 wins in 84 games. So I guess maybe that would be comparable for this. Yeah. Well, except that the difference between good and bad in those leagues was like enormous, right? Yeah. I, again, I wrote about this over the weekend. Like the thing that they don't talk about when you talk about the South salary cap is they have a floor on how much you're allowed to spend too.

So in theory, you're supposed to have like three or four guys who are in like actually just plain old good NHL players. And you surround those guys with bad talent beyond that maybe if you're if you're trying to tank. And the sharks do have a couple of good players, I would say. Like guys, I would want on my team for sure. But, man, everybody said going into the year, this defense. is like, you can't believe how bad it.

Oh, and poor Mark Edward Vlasic. I mean, not that he's doing anything to help his own cause, but considering the career he had and how lofty, his standards were at one point, watching this runout is kind of sad. Mark asked kind of along these lines after staying up past 1 a.m. Eastern last night, watching the sharks with morbid curiosity,

if you were a GM, what would you do? What players do you target be a trader upcoming free agency do you focus on draft capital or prospects? Is there anything to do in the short term? The answer's no, right? And I think because they also have so much dead money on the books the next couple years as well. They do. They're almost incentivized to just ride this out because even if they wanted to all of a sudden acquire good players and be competent,

it would be tough because they have like 10 to 15 million in cap commitments that aren't on their team are not helping them this season. So yeah, I would be I would be walking up to, uh, Logan Couture and, and Thomas Hurdle of being like, you want to, you want to wave that no trade? How's that sound? That's how good to you? You know, like, do you want to be on this team? I bet you don't. And they're going, I definitely don't, you know, that that would be, that would be my, my steps like one and two for sure. It is just get even worse. Like, whatever. I mean, I don't think it's possible. I think, I think you're probably, but you know what I mean. Like, Make the roster even worse.

Let's put it that way. I'm trading Anthony Duclair. I'm trading Mike Hoffman if I can. You know, like I don't know how much they have in terms of guys they're retaining salary on. Oh, Burns and Carlson, I guess, would be the two. And so they have one more retained salary transaction. Hell, you know, there's a couple of guys. I'd be happy to retain salary on for the near future, you know.

So, like you said, there's no pulling out of this. And I think that's frankly a little bit by design. I guess the shame of it, though, is that they didn't do this last year, right? Totally. The fact that they went through 40, 50 games with Timelmeyer and Carlson and then all season with Carlson, like I get that it gave people a reason to watch Sharks games and go to the rink and all that because Carlson was having this historic season, and I guess maybe they really had to wait

to leave the off season, a facility to trade, but I just would have liked to be this bad in the Connor Baudard season as well. Now, Macklin-Cellibrini is quite a nice consolation prize here, and they got Will Smith. Last year, it was a really good prospect as well, certainly. But, yeah, I just would have loved to be the worst team in both the Baudard and Celebrity seasons

and try to maximize my odds of getting both, because this is going to be a long haul. I guess the question is here, We got another one about like, I'm sure if you're Will Smith, like, it's cool to come play in the NHL, right? It's a dream. You make a lot of money at that spot and it's all well and good, but it's like, do you want to be stepping into this type of situation? Like, you're almost just like, yeah, you should just stay in college and as long as you can, right? Like, what's the, what's the rush if you're going to be just getting absolutely smacked her out on a nightly basis the way the sharks are this year?

And like, that's not the great intro into the league. So I don't know. Do you want to talk a little bit about Celebrating? You're going to go see him today. Yeah. I guess he's the crown jewel and kind of the light at the end of the tunnel for whatever the shark season is. Yeah, he, uh, I saw him this past Saturday. The BU came out to UMass and I lived near UMass.

So, uh, I made the, I made the trek and, um, boy, this kid, he can, he can shoot the fuck really, really, really hard. he scored two goals in the game I saw he now currently leads the country in goals and this is a kid who won't be 18 until June he's playing the entire season as a 17 year old I have no recollection of any kid ever doing that in college hockey uh

both well okay definitely the first goal I think it was a four on four maybe a power play goal you were just like well he's going to score on this shit like everything was just happening in such a way that you were like dead on convinced and so they get the puck to him and he shoots it as hard as I've ever seen anybody shoot it and he misses the net B, recovers it behind the goal cycles it back around

second time it was just like well he's not going to miss twice not with that shot and yeah just teleports it into the net so effortlessly And then the second goal he scored, which forced overtime. He just like went around a couple of guys and had absolutely no angle and put it in the goal like through three bodies. And it was just one of those goals where it's like any other player on the ice, any other player I've seen this season might have attempted that shot. Nobody would have scored it except back on Celebrity. Like this kid is just such an obviously special talent and he's, you know,

he's playing against guys who are like five, six, seven, eight years older than him. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, he's also. I'm excited to watch more of them. And I think there's going to be a lot of fan bases that are eagerly following him this season. And the sharks are atop that list. All right.

That was a nice little scouting report there from the college guy, Ryan Lambert. Um, RL, let's take our break here before we, uh, take more questions. I think it's a good time to do so. And then we come back, we will keep rifling through your listener questions. You're listening to the Hockey P.D. guest streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right. We're back in the Hockeypedo guest, Ryan Lambert taking your listener questions.

R.L. I don't even have. There's just so many to work through here. We're going to go in order. I don't have like an actual list jot it down up which ones we want to do. So we'll, uh, let's go our way through them. Okay. Laban on the beat.

If you could If you could take one team that isn't currently rebuilding and force them into a rebuild, which team do you think benefits the most, and how would you do it? That's a good question. Here, you want me to give you my nomination? Yeah, sure.

I think it's got to be the Calgary Flames, right? Yeah, okay, sure. Yeah, that's the answer. That's the number one. Them or Winnipeg, I guess, would be the two that I would highlight. Winnipeg just signed Connor Halbeck and

Connor Halbach and Mark Shively to just Yeah, they shouldn't have done it I know. They shouldn't have done that? I know. I know. They shouldn't have. But the flames are 2-7 and 1. They have a minus 15 gold de Brentchell. Yeah, they stink. Oh, boy. I think they're 30th in shooting percentage and save percentage. And the crazy thing is

I think like Markstrom's been fine because he's had a pretty rough. I mean, you watch that like, outdoor game and that was maybe to an extreme but they were just like under siege the entire time against an oilers team that's struggling themselves and while there's offensive talent on this team it's a lot more of what we saw last year in terms of like the process and so i don't think it's a fluke that they're struggling to turn volume into efficiency and so i don't know man like they while it's tough because you just have so much future money still owed to huberto and cadre and Uyghur from that one summer, at least like Elias Landholm, Noah Hanif, Chris Tannock, Nikita Zedorov,

like Fuladar, potentially Markstrom, if you retain. There's enough good players here that are on movable contracts, especially a lot of those guys, like the Lianoslan home at 4.85. If you retain that, if you retain on that, it doesn't move it, like pretty much any contender can just effortlessly slide that onto a capbook at the deadline without having to shed money the other way or completely reconfigure their roster. And so you could probably get an extra premium just for that luxury. And so I don't know, there's enough good players there that you could trade.

It just seems like barreling ahead and pretending like things are going to get better is not ideal. I'm not sure if they're incentivized to do so. Do you see that Noah Hanepin thing in the, in L.A. Preiman's latest 32 thoughts? Yeah. And how he turned down whatever amount of money and wants to put it on pause while he figures out what's going on with Calgary here this season. It's like, oh boy, I can, I mean, maybe that honestly is a, I mean, that is a blessing in disguise for Calgary, I think. 100% I say this all the time. I said this a lot when like a few summers ago when the Oilers were like,

yeah, we're just going to like get the band back together. And it's like, you guys know you were horrible last year, right? Do you remember that? And they were like, yeah, what are we going to do? We're going to let guys walk from this team. Yeah, dude, do that. That's fine. And obviously, you know, the oilers at least had the benefit of McDavid and Drysidal, right?

Like those guys are going to drag anybody kicking and screaming to a half decent season. But like, yeah, the flames are like, we got to lock in all these guys from this team that sucks. You know, like, it doesn't make any sense to me. Oh, were we any good last year? No, not at all. But of course, we can't afford to lose any of the guys who are the best players on the bad team. They're not the problem here. And it's like, right, but if you give all those guys big money to stay, like Lyndall and Hanif and.

probably both want like eight, nine million bucks a year. And it's like, well, if you give those guys a combined, let's say, $16, 17 million, and you're also giving Huberto 10 and a half and Cadry seven and Weager six and a quarter, and Markstrom's six, suddenly you're like, oh, I guess we don't have any money to spend it. We still stink. Isn't that weird? You know, like, it's what Winnipeg's doing. Oh, what are we going to do?

Let these guys walk. but then we'll barely make the playoffs. Or we won't barely make the playoffs. We just straight up, we'll do it. And it's like, I don't know. Again, we talk about this all the time on puck soup, but it's like, yeah, no, for NHL teams, it's really getting those two or maybe three home dates in the first round

and being able to sell that to people. And if this wasn't such a low revenue league relative to all the, all the other major North American sports, I don't think you'd see nearly as many teams doing with Calgary and Winnipeg or doing. And Washington, for that matter, although,

you know, that's a little different because of the Ovechkin thing. Well, yeah, Washington sees it as like, it's, their hockey team is a front right now for Ovechkin's goal scoring.

Yep. And, which is fine. And if, and if you say that, Capitals fans get insanely mad at you. And it's like, have you not watched for the last two or three years?

brother. I mean, I don't know, I don't know how else to put it to you. That's what this is for. For that. I get if like, last year was so miserable in Calgary and it was very easy to just put that all at the feet of Daryl Sutter, right? And then everything you heard this offseason was like, the vibes are just so much better. Like players were happier. And I was like, all right, like, there's enough good players here even though they were so totally last year that I can see how it work and so I was actually willing to give them a chance, but then you watch it again, and it's like, there's just something missing. And even like, you put Connor's area look fantastic in his debut, you put him into the lineup. Like, there's, there's talent here, but for whatever reason,

it's not adding up. And I don't think it's as simple as like, well, let's just trade away one of these guys and then everyone else will get it together. It's like, I think you just got to go full out here and get rid of everything you can. Yeah. And they just re-signed Backland, too. Again, they're just like, well, what are we going to do? Not let a 34-year-old, uh, But that deal could have been so much worse even. For sure. Yes. But, you know, like, it's the pursuit of, God, Blake Coleman, $4.9 million.

Oh. I just don't get the, like, what Hanepin has on his side is the fact that he's younger in terms of he's going to be 27 in January. But like, the comps of Devon Taves in terms of the price and everything, it's like, I guess they both. play the defense position. Hey, if someone will give you that money, more power to you. That's great news for you, you know? Well, the staggering thing is that he turned it down, which means that he's probably betting on the fact that it will still be there

from someone else, and he's probably right. Yeah. Well, the cap's going up. I don't know if you heard about this. And what are GMs going to do, spend that money wisely? Please. You know, this is the NHL. we all need to hire Noah Hanofin's PR manager.

I mean, I guess what he has working for him is that he's big, it looks good, in a uniform. So people talk themselves into it. I just don't. I said this last year at the deadline when I was coming up with all these fake trades for how to be trading it in Hanofin to other teams. And I was like, can someone just tell me one thing that he's really good at? And I guess he's pretty good at a lot of stuff. Yeah, there's players in this league that are,

good enough at enough things that it adds up to being a net positive player, right? And he certainly is. But when you're talking about, all right, let's make an eight year commitment into his 30s above $7 million per year on this guy, I kind of need something a bit more concrete than that, I think. Totally. And so, like right now what he's making $4.95, that's great. Then that's perfectly, that's a nice slot for him. But all of a sudden, once you start getting into that entirely different tax bracket, I get pretty uneasy about it. I'm very curious to see how that unfolds. But yeah, I think Calgary is the answer here.

I mean, the reality is there's any number of teams that you could probably make a case for with this question. A hundred percent. Yeah. When I was really struggling with this earlier, I was like, who don't? You know, like Pittsburgh should blow it up, right? Like, why not? You know?

But they're obviously not going to. Well, at least with me, like, you're committed. Totally. To all can I cross. me, right? And they should. It'd be, I don't want to see them. And look at it. And Carlson. Yeah. Yeah. No, but I mean like, in that case, it's like, what, Calgary? What are they committed to? What are they committed to here? I, look, you don't have for eight in the West. Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. I got a bunch of questions about the devils

and their power play and how they're playing. And I'll say this. I think it's remarkable. and probably under talked about at this point, that they are 6-2-1 while being 26 in team save percentage and 23rd and 5-on-5 goals score. Like, for them to have bank this many wins, and, you know, their top players are playing well in producing, and a lot of that is why the power play has been so electric,

but I would imagine that regardless of your mileage of, if you take advantage check and Akirschmeet, just based on the skater talent, there's going to be an environment there for them to not finish as 26 in teams a percentage and certainly they will not finish the year 23rd and 5.15 goal scoring. And so the power play is going to regress a bit and that's going to kind of balance itself out. But the fact that this team's won six of its first nine games while having these types of metrics under the hood is pretty remarkable.

And I guess a testament to just how important like having pure star power that can drag you across the finish line isn't this league. Yeah, I think that the point about why the power play is really good. Look, they're playing well, but they're not playing as well as they did last season, I would say. And obviously, it's only like 10 or 11 games, so, you know, whatever. But last season at 5 on 5 in all situations, however you want to look at it, they were one of the like two or three best teams in the league. And this year they're a little more middle of the pack.

And it doesn't matter because the puck's jumping in the net. I don't expect the puck to stop jumping in the net for them. But, you know, this does maybe expose a little bit of the, oh, we can just plug anyone in back there. Like you said, I don't think they're going to be 27th in that same percentage stat all year. But what's the reasonable ceiling there? And, you know, if it gets them like 15, 12, something like that, if they can get there by the end of the year, they're going to win a ton of hockey game. an absolute, like, unbelievable amount of them. Um, because they are that good, but, you know, they're, it remains a gamble and, and,

I think the, the bigger question about goaltending is how that holds up in the playoff. Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, certainly. And I think they'll probably explore it, I guess, like, after you see what Helibuck's extension was, I can see why that wasn't a viable path for them to take. Sure. But yeah, I would imagine that would be something to explore and I expected to get better.

So I'm not too worried about that at all. Jonathan asks, does a coaching change fix Pittsburgh? So it's hard because you never want to say a team that seems to be playing as badly as them is they're this close to turning it around, right? but and you also don't want to get into the business of well the deserve to win o meter will will even things out over the course of the full 82 but in this case I think I think it's fair to say that they're not getting the bounces at either end of the ice which we mentioned before they are sixth from the bottom in save percentage which maybe you say that would have been a risk going into the season regardless um But yeah, I just think that I think that they're probably too good to keep playing this badly. Yeah, I think that's probably. Keep getting these bad results. I don't think they're playing badly.

Yeah, I think that's probably right. I mean, it's clearly a flawed team. Like I talked about this on yesterday show, the they're getting nothing from the bottom six in particular, the fourth line, despite paying it quite a bit of money. And that's a totally foreseeable outcome. Yes, it was last year. they change all the names, getting the same results from it. And so that, like, just limits their margin for air. Like, they just really can't afford to have off nights and our top players.

Now those guys are so good that those are few and far between, but this will happen. But from time to time, I'm always uneasy because I guess it's tough to quantify coaching impact because so much of it is unknown to us and kind of happens, like, behind the scenes from the communication with players and interactions and all that good stuff and the preparation. But, right, I feel pretty confident that Mike Sullivan's one of the better coaches in this league despite the team's results recently. And so while I'm all for kind of mixing it up and potentially, like, this is by far the

oldest team in the league and Mike Sullivan really wants them, like his whole strategy is like play aggressively fast, right? And like constant pressure and pursuit and that clearly might not be an optimal way to play when you're the oldest team in the league. But he seems very persistent on that because that's his MO. and so I can see, all right, there might be a better fit out there stylistically. But I'm always like, this happened for years with Bruce Boudreau. I was like, all right, well, you make a change.

And then all of a sudden you're going to downgrade a coach because it's going to be tough to find someone better than Mike Sullivan. And he's going to be out of a job for minutes. Five minutes. Yeah. And so it's like, all right, what have you ultimately accomplished? So making a change just for the sake of making a change is always a pretty risky proposition in this regard.

Yeah, I say that all the time. Like, okay, you're going to fire your coach or your GM or, or, whoever, who's better? Who's out there who's better than Mike Sullivan? And if you think there's anybody on the list at all, and I personally, if you think there is, it's going to be max one name, two, and again, I don't know who I would say

you could even reasonably argue has the track record and that kind of thing. Yeah. I'm like, even leaving aside, you know, those two cups were actually kind of a long time ago now. They were. Um, yeah, I'm with you. Tyler asks, are the Rangers nasty? The Rangers, I, you know, to me, I think the Rangers are what they have been in a lot of ways, right?

Where like, are they playing well at five on five? Not really. Does it matter because of their talent threshold in goal and on the power play? Not really. In what way is this Rangers team playing, you know, obviously there have been some stylistic changes that come with a coaching change. But like, are the end results of those, of those stylistic changes in any way different? I don't know that they are.

Yeah, the defensive metrics are pretty good. I mean, they were starting to trend that way anyways previously. They've been really good this year. And obviously, when you're that stingy and then you have Igor Shus Turk and you're going to post some really good suppression numbers. and that's what we've seen here. And the combination of that, as you mentioned, with an absolutely ruthlessly efficient power play

is a scary combo because if those two things are clicking, like, you're going to generate easy goals and you're not going to give up a lot of them. You're going to win a lot of games. And that's the formula they have, and that's a really good one. Again, does that work in the playoffs?

Maybe not, as we've seen. But it might. The problem is I still think team speed is a bit of a concern. as we saw in last year's series against the Devils, and that's not going to go away. And so I guess that's a bit of a different question. But yeah, I mean, they're playing well.

The fact that Mika Zabinajad has zero five-on-five goals so far this season. I mean, him and Crider have been on the ice for one goal so far, and they're still just banking these games because of how good the defense and goaltending and power play is. That's encouraging. So, yeah, like you talk about how, like, a team like Pittsburgh, they have so little margin for error. This Rangers team has so much margin for error because they can not have the puck

and have a bad game and still win three, two, or two, one with timely saves and goals. And so, yeah, in that sense, it's the same as it ever was, I guess. And you'll probably appreciate this one. I mean, Artemian, uh, shaves the head and all of a sudden, entirely different man. I mean, team play balled. He's been, uh, he's been looking very aerodynamic out there. And so I guess like that would be a potential change here, right? Like if you're actually going to get meaningful 5-1-5 goal scoring from that combination of him, Lafranier,

and I know Heidel got hurt last night, but giving them that line and that it's been a Jen and cried or finally get going, some of our questions previously were all right, like the depth scoring and stuff like that. And if you're going to get that, then maybe that changes the equation a little bit. And certainly, Pernan's level so far this year is encouraging if he can keep it up, I guess, moment forward. I'll give you a kind of trivia question here. There are two teams that have a worse expected goals for per 60 at five on five than New York Rangers. Who are they? Expect the goals four.

Not share. Okay. The Chicago Bockeops? Nope. Now, one of them is a slam dunk easy. Oh, the sharks. Yeah, of course. The other one is the St. Louis Blues.

Right. Which we all had coming into the season. It was like, oh, the goaltending will be good, but man, they can't generate any offense. That's exactly right. The Blues take we all had heading into the year. And they're tied for fifth in actual goals for per 60 at five on five with the Calgary Flames. And there are four teams below them, the Predators, Blues, Capitals, and Shark. And you look at that group, either group, as a matter of fact,

You look at either group and you go, well, the Rangers are definitely better than those guys. The offense isn't there yet for them. And by expected goals, it probably shouldn't be there for them. But by talent, you're like, oh, these guys, like you said, with Sabana Jad, these guys are going to start putting the puck in the net at five on five. And when they do, I mean, they're already winning a ton of games. But when they do, that like you said, just increases their margin for error. and they're gonna

I was a little down on them but uh coming into the year it doesn't matter so far yeah I get what you're saying I guess with the team like the Rangers I'm always a bit wary of like

expected according to whom and I don't open that whole kind of worms but it's like I think they've clearly shown us enough at this point that I think 45% for them might be like 40, for someone else. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, and that speaks to just the talent gap. I had particular decisions, but yeah. Oh, man, we got such, I wish we got this one previously.

I'm just refreshing my feet here as we're talking. And we got another one about the sharks. It was like, a beast asked if the sharks placed their entire roster on waivers today, how many players would be claimed? That's, uh, I don't know, we haven't done enough rep for that one, but that's a, that's a final question to consider. I think the answer would be a startlingly low amount. Pretty close to zero. Yeah, because even like, I mean, I'm sure that someone would find a way to to make it work for Thomas Hurdle, but there's just so. I don't know if you could. I could just absorb that money without doing anything else today.

So you, I don't know if you, I legitimately don't know if you could with hurdle just because it's like, it's so much money. And he and he is awesome. I love Thomas. But like, everybody's up against the cap. Chester asked, can the Canucks finish the season at a 200 PDO? they're pretty close right now. Why couldn't they keep it up? The stonks are going up.

Obviously being facetious here and night like last night. And I think they have two more games against the sharks before Christmas. Why does it, right? Those are awesome for patting all the good old stats. I will say, Demko being healthy and playing this well, and then Pedersen and Hughes,

to go along with Miller and Kuzmenko and you go online. Like, it's brings us back to that question, kind of similar to what we were just talking about with the Rangers, where I probably would expect the baselines to be slightly different for them with, oh, absolutely. Now, obviously, this is on the extreme end, and I don't think anyone were reasonably expected to continue. But still, it's, maybe I was a bit too low on them heading into the year,

just because last year was, was such a mess and all these guys are playing at such high levels that it still is a superstar driven league. And if you have this many guys at important positions playing this well, you're going to win a lot of games, especially in the regular season. So that's kind of what's going on with the sharks or with the, uh, with the conucks right now. Yeah, they're, they're, um, their first in shooting percentage in the league right now, all situations in second and save percentage. You're going to win a lot of games that way. And, and this is, this is a point I always make. If they played anybody good in the last week, they only played the Rangers, or the last two weeks, maybe, you'd even say.

They're really the old. But. How many good teams would you say there are in the league right now? Like, truly good that you feel. Actual good airy strongly about where you're like, wow. If they got smoked, I would be ruins. Pretty surprised. Devils.

Vegas, Dallas, Colorado. That's five. L.A. Oh, L.A. sure six the rangers seven like with camp talbot or phoenix coppelianette if i saw them lose seven one i wouldn't be like whoa where did that come from yeah and the rangers so that's seven anybody else jumped to mind like Toronto Toronto is not quite again like if they got smoked by somebody it wouldn't surprise me at all because because in part because of the goaltending and the

depth problems that have cropped up over the last few years um you would normally have said carolina and they are back above 500 now. But the way things have started for them this year, you can't really say they've earned the benefit of the doubt there. And I guess you would say the same thing for Edmonton, where on paper, no, but in actual practice so far this year, they've been bad. So, yeah, I guess it's like five, six, seven teams, something like that.

Yeah. I mean, there's 11 teams over 53% goal share. this year. Yeah. There's a whole lot of them that are like, well, you know, a lot of those, the sharks have played 10 teams, you know what I mean?

So that's, that's going to get you at plus 24. How about this? I just, I just looked this up this morning. Plus 24 goal difference, minus 30 shot difference. What a team.

Hmm. Yeah, the Golden Knights. They're ridiculous. Yeah. Well, and they're just, yeah in terms of like off nights right it's just really tough because pretty much they're there have to be like a flu bug going through the entire lineup because anyone can take a night off and I wouldn't really expect them to change their performance in the slightest

absolutely yeah I mean they want to Stanley cup with Aden Hill and that right like the the the level of uh consistency game to game of just like though we're insanely good is maybe higher than I've ever seen in the last like 10 years. Jake asks, is Pavel Minchikov him? Definitively, yes. Yeah, he's him, though. Yes. Carter asked, does the Kings, I guess I just already talked about the Kings,

but does the King's nine-point lead over Redmondton make them favor to finish second in the Pacific behind Vegas? I think pretty clearly at this point, it goes Vegas, L.A., and then if Edmonton's going to keep playing this badly, and that's going to keep playing this well, then all of a sudden it's getting very interesting beyond that. But yeah, I think those two are kind of asserting themselves just based on the results,

but also the process they're using to get there. Yep, no, I think that, you know, I recently rewatched the movie Castaway. And at the end of the movie where, like, Wilson's going over the waves and Tom Hanks is like, no, not Wilson, you know, like he's screaming for Wilson. It's kind of how I feel about the Edmonds and Oilers, man, they have half as many points as Seattle right now.

And Seattle stinks. I don't know what else to say. Like, the Oilers, I would say, right now I'm still thinking there'll be a playoff team because they can't be this bad. But every game that passes, the pace at which they have to play ticks up, you know, from 104 and a half to 105.2 points every game they lose. And at some point, if they keep playing like this, that dog is just going to keep running away from them. You know, you can't.

Yeah. I mean, they're just getting eviscerated off the rush. Like, I talked about them yesterday. I think the stat was rush goals, four and against were 14 against and four. Four, they were getting out of 14 and four off the rush. And then they gave up another four goals off the rush, I believe, to Dallas last night. Mm-hmm. And so, yeah, it's pretty tough to overcome that, although they did have a spirit.

effort at the end there to try to come back in that one. All right. R. I'll let you plug some stuff here on the way out because I know you've got a lot of plugs to get through, so I'll save you a few minutes. Or the listeners know where they can check you out and all that good stuff. All my writings at Eprinkside.com. I cover college hockey in the NHL.

And so I just wrote a feature about BU this past weekend. I'll probably write about North Dakota coming up on Monday because they're off to an awesome start, which everybody kind of expected. And, yeah, like this weekend, it'll be a clash of two of the, I don't know, four or five best teams in the country. So I'm really looking forward to that. And I'll write about it on Monday. Awesome.

Do you guys use a Discord for, for Puck Soup or anything? We do. Yeah. You got to sign up for the Patreon to do it. That's patreon.com slash Puck Soup. But yeah, we, we've gotten a lot of, a lot of joinups in the last little while. I don't know how many people are on there and I don't know how to look it up

but it's a pretty active community and you know it's for the most part pretty cool people so I love it. Yeah. And then like the Puck's Soup podcast, you know where to find podcasts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't even tell you.

Everyone listening to this already listens to that. No, the reason I brought that up is because I'm starting one here. I've mentioned a few times on the show. I've had a few people reach out so others. I want to keep it just for people who actually listen to the show just so it can be, the community that talks about the show and kind of has thoughtful conversations and all that, but also use it for future mailbags and stuff.

So if you are interested, reach out. I'll send you an invite link and we're going to build that up. And all future mailbags like this one we did with Ryan today are going to take questions from there. So that's going to be for today's show. RL, this is a blast. Good to have you on again this season. And thank you to everyone for listening to us. We'll be back with more of the Hockey Ocadcast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.