The Hockey PDOcast - Let Miro cook

Episode Date: October 11, 2022

Dimitri Filipovic debuts his show on Sportsnet 650 with guest Cam Charron. They run through all the players they are really excited to watch this season. Especially Miro Heiskanen. How do they project Elias Pettersson to play in 22-23? How much of a step forward can the Canucks' PP step forward this season?This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

dressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovin. Welcome to the Hockey PEOCast. My name is Demetri Filippovich. And not only is this the first episode of the 2022, 2020, 2023 season for the Hockey PEOCast, it's also the first episode that will be streaming live on the Sports Net Radio Network.

And joining me today for this exciting premier edition of the PDO cast is my good pal Cam Sharon. Cam, what's going on, man? It's, uh, we're not. Having a great day today. For those listening live, Thai France just hit a RBI double. Mariners up 6-2. This is a hockey show, I know.

We said we're going to limit the Mariners talk on this episode of the PDO cast. It's been a long time. I've been off for three months here, so I'm really itching to get back and talk about it. And obviously, the NHL regular season is officially starting tonight. You know, we had a couple of games in Europe over the weekend. I'm going to be honest with you, Dmitri. I didn't know I'll watch a second of those games. And I think that's totally fine.

I think you're well within your rights to do so. So let's tee this thing up for our listeners because we've got a lot of material to pack into today's episode. What we're going to do is we're going to list a number of players that we are excited to watch this season. It's not necessarily your traditional kind of breakout piece that people typically do because I feel like then we get really beholden to like the textbook definition of, oh, has this guy already broken out? Is he even qualified for this? So instead, it can be wide ranging.

It can be veterans, it could be young players, it could be players who have already had good seasons in NHL. Just a list of names of guys that we're excited. We're going to talk about why we're excited about them, and we're just going to see kind of where that takes us and how many names we can rattle through. So I'll give you the floor here as our first guest. Give me the first name on your list and the first player that you're really excited to watch this coming season. On the PDO cast this year, we're probably going to talk a lot about our ducks. Yes. and one of the reasons for this is I love their defense and particularly Jamie Drystale.

I think that Drystale, he's just a very, he's one of three excellent puck-moving right-shot defensemen on the Ducks. I think that that gives them with Chattonkirk and Klingberg, that gives them a good puck mover on every pairing. And so with him, what I like is that he's just so quick. He's big. Where is he? He's like 6, 4, 6, 5. I don't put these into my, uh, sure.

But he's, yeah, he's, you know, he's a, he's a, he's a big out. He's a big out. He's a big, yeah. He's a big and rangy. He's extremely good at defending. And what I'm really looking forward to is to see whether, uh, whether Anaheim opens it up a little bit more. My impression watching the ducks last year was that dry stale was kind of limited a

little bit. I didn't think that they really gave him the green light to take off offensively, despite how good he was at exiting the zone and entering the zone with control. So I'd like to see them opening up a little bit more, let him move the puck more, let him work in the offensive zone. He's got all the tools for that. Yeah, and we were talking like, I don't know if this is a word, but we're going to go with it. He's got really good recoverability.

He's able to, even if he's deep in the offensive zone and he seems like he's kind of out of position, he's able to get back in a defensive posture and really, you know, either all the way, like go kind of stride for stride with whoever has the puck and knock it away from them or get back in position and not be a total liability. So I'd love to see them tap into that. I think this team, I think it's fair to say that they're probably still a year or two away from having real aspirations for competing for a playoff spot and actually kind of getting out of this rebuild phase they've been in.

But it's hard not to, A, like what they've really done, especially since Pat Burbeek took over made way through last season. also be kind of the personnel they have in place for playing really fun, high-scoring games where they ultimately probably wind up losing, and that's totally fine. They're going to get another high draft pick. But games that are just incredibly watchable with, you know, with Zegris, with Terry, and then with some of those blue liners you mentioned, like they've got enough firepower to really hang with some of the best teams in the league. Yeah, and I really like, I like the word recoverability, and it's one of those things that if a defenseman's fast enough, they can take those risks,

because if they turn it over, they can immediately come and grab the puck back. And I love how dry stale is just so toolsy that he can cover for his own mistakes. And yeah, those young forwards are really going to be helped by the fact that every pairing is going to have a guy that can help them move the puck forward, break the forecheck, get the play moving the right way. It's less on those forwards to be able to do. Okay. Well, I like that. That's a great first pick out of the gate. I'm going to stick with the kind of theme of young toolsy defensemen that we're really excited about here.

And I'm going to go with Owen Power. And now I know that we only have kind of a brief eight-game cameo of his from last season to really kind of dive into or sink our teeth into from like a tape perspective of what he's capable of. And especially at the end of a season where, you know, you're not playing for the playoffs. You're kind of playing out the string of your season, even though the Sabres were competing really hard. It's tough to know like how much of that we should really even care about, right? in the case of what I saw from Owen Power, though, just the instincts that he has and the habits in terms of the way he plays, I think he is like the future of what we want this game to look like.

Now, he's a physical freak. He's 6'6. He can move very fluidly. Like, I'm not expecting every player to look like that moving forward. But just in terms of the way he plays, I think so often where, I'm sure you've heard this term, like the positionless hockey, right? Where it's like, oh, we just want to see five forwards out there. Everyone can play the same position.

And I think that's certainly a bit extreme for right now, but I think that's fine. I think instead we should be more focused on positional interchangeability, which is you have five guys out there. You can still have three forwards and two defensemen, but it doesn't necessarily mean that when you're in the offensive zone, the two defensemen have to be stuck on the point near the blue line, and then the forwards are down low.

Like, it's okay to mix a match. We see the abs do this all the time where Kyle McCarra takes the puck and he's skating it behind the net. And he's easily allowed to do that because McKinnon cycles back up to the point and basically kind of plays near the blue line and he loves to shoot from there as well. And so Owen Power, what we saw in those eight games is he has incredible instincts

in terms of reading where the play is going. He's very comfortable playing deep in the offensive zone. I think I saw in those eight games, him hanging around the other team's net more times than you see for 82 games for a regular defenseman. Like he was so aggressive last year. And then he had that recoverability as well

to get back with his skating and break players up defensively. And so I'm going to be watching a lot of Sabres hockey this year because I think like along with him, Gillesmastardine, you know, Alex Tuck, obviously Dylan Cousins, Jack Quinn is making the team. Like I think there's a lot to watch there. But I think Owen Power is the player that I think, you know,

has the most potential and has legitimate rookie of the year considerations. Yeah. So the one thing I'm worried about with power, though, is just the Buffalo power play. And I want to pose a question to you. I was going to ask you before we went on. Okay. This is a situation where I think Buffalo should be using. three forwards and two defensemen on the power play.

The way that you talk about power. He should be their net front guy. He could be the net front guy. He could be the bumper guy. He could be kind of that in-zone rover. And yeah, I like that when you talk about positionist player, yeah, take it from the player, take it from the position that plays 25 minutes a night. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I mean, I don't know if they're even considering that or if they would do that, but I'd certainly be open to it because I think he's more than capable of doing so. Yeah, and I was very unimpressed by their powerplay last year. Two pretty bad units, and they're beginning this year with Dahlene is going to be at the point. Tuck, Tage Thompson, Jeff Skinner, Casey Middlestadt. I don't love the personnel. I like it a lot better if Owen Power is there instead of maybe Middle Stat.

But we'll get into that midseason probably. Well, yeah, I think, you know, just to kind of follow up on some of the stuff I was saying with power, almost when you watch him play, you need to retrain your eyes. we're so used to as hockey fans just kind of seeing like, all right, a defenseman is kind of supposed to be here and then a four is supposed to be there. And with him, like, there was this play against the Flyers late in the season where he jumped in on the rush and he basically kind of beeline straight to the net. And then the play didn't manifest in terms of a rough rush goal.

And most defensemen, if they kind of partook in that first play, they'd realize that they were out of position and quickly, regardless of who had the puck, they'd be like, oh, I need to sprint back and be in a better defensive position. And instead with him, he sort of patiently circled. around the net, went backdoor and was going to have an easy tap-in goal if he didn't draw a penalty because the opposing defenseman was like, oh, he's wide open there. I got to hook him. And so just seeing stuff like that, seeing his willingness to play like that, it's so cool to see a young defenseman step into the game. Now, what I will say, there were a few times where,

you know, there'd be an open lane and he would just drive and he'd be wide open. And one of his teammates would basically not pass to him. And I think it was purely because they similarly need to retrain their eyes. They weren't expecting an offenseman to kind of be popping up in that space. And so they either miss it or they wouldn't cover for him when he was down low. And so I think that stuff, you know, over time, A, you know, he jumped right in from his college season last year and played out the string of the NHL campaign. So they finally had a full preseason and training camp and preseason games to iron that out.

And B, if the Sabres do kind of take that step in terms of infusing their lineup with all this talent that they've drafted, they're going to have players like a Jack Quinn can probably see the game the same way. Owen Power doesn't be like, okay, I can expect him to go over. there as opposed to if you have like kind of a you know a veteran third line grinder they might not be thinking along those same same lines as him so i'm curious to see if that kind of gels itself out throughout the year yeah one thing i really like doing when i'm when i'm doing amateur scouting you're looking at players from lower leagues is are they doing things that are just so beyond

the skill level of their of their average teammate and that that's usually a good indicator that the guy's ready for the next level so if we're seeing that from a guy in the nchel that's a good sign for him going forward, but you're right. He's going to need those teammates around him. Yeah. I don't, and like Anaheim, I think that Buffalo is still a year away from being a year away. Well, now here's one final wrinkle that I want to add on power before we move on to our next guy. One thing I really love when NHL coaches experiment with this is manufacturing offensive deployment for their skilled players. And in those eight games, we saw, we saw Don Granato, who I think is a really good coach.

experiment with putting power and Dali and out at 5-1-5 together for offensive zone draws where, you know, he felt like they could manufacture a potential scoring chance or a goal. And we only saw it for about 10 minutes or so. It was basically, you know, purely just for offensive zone draws. He wasn't throwing them out there otherwise. And the result was awesome. And I love when teams kind of, you know, push the envelope in that regard and actually try to get their best players, even though they're not typically paired up together.

I love when teams do that. I used to love when the stars would do that with Klingberg and Heiskenet. And I love when teams experiment with that. And so I think we're going to see that as well because you're saying the Sabres are a year away from being a year away. Well, they have nothing to lose this year. Why not experiment and see if those guys can make magic happen together in the offensive zone? And if that is the case, I want to be watching. Yeah, and exactly.

And even beyond that, but some four-forward 1-D combinations. You can do that with both Dalian and Power. Both have the offensive ability, I think. But you told me to watch some of Powers games, and I did. And I was very impressed, especially with how he moves around the offensive zone. Already one of the best guys of pinching in the league, which is, I think, a real skill because you kind of have to anticipate

where you need to go. Otherwise, you can get stuck along the boards and all of a sudden be out of position. Cam, give me your next guy on your list in terms of players you're excited to watch. I'm going to stay on defense. I'm going to stay guys with a good pinching ability and for our listeners in Calgary too. Oh, there we go.

Look at that little local local programming. Yeah, talking about McKenzie Wieghar, who they picked up in the in the Kachuk trade from Florida. I've really liked. In Calgary, we call that the Hubert O trade. Yeah. Well, yeah, I was trying to think for a second. It's been a long summer.

I was thinking of who went what direction. Wegar, I've really liked him. He's not only a very strong defenseman when defending when protecting his blue line. If you look at Corey Schnader's all three zones data, you find that he's defending the zone a lot. He's turning over the puck. He's basically forcing the opponent to shoot the puck in. unless he's forcing a turnover at the blue line on its own. And that's a very valuable skill for a defenseman.

Another thing that Weigar does is if a forward's able to get the zone against him, he can still poke check the puck away. He's got a very good stick inside the defensive zone. I love just watching offensive plays go to die on his side of the ice. And I think, sorry, did you have something to say here? No, I was going to say. like he for some reason he's turned into this polarizing player because one his mistakes have been very notable kind of backbreaking moments in the playoffs and two now that he's been traded

a lot of the pushback has been well of course like he was good on this panthers team where everyone that played for them in this high octane system they were they were kind of using the past two years their numbers exploded and he was playing most of his minutes with erin ekblad and it's very easy to poke holes in that like we saw him play 350 minutes without ecblad when he was hurt the past two years doing so with gustav forsling or whoever else was fair with him. His numbers did not deteriorate at all. Yeah. And if you look at the, if you look at the all three in the zones data and you look at those strong entry defenders, a lot of the ones in the same quadrant and same ability, they're playing against third, fourth liners all the time.

So he's, he's basically making your top line players look like third liners on a regular basis. And like, I don't know, is it fair to say that he's stepping into an ideal situation for that skill set? Because what Daryl Sutter wants from his defenseman is to aggressively turn turn the puck over so that they can tilt the ice and get back playing that downhill style where they control the possession. He doesn't want his guys to be chasing around a defensive zone and wasting time, right? Like that's valuable real estate for them to be having the puck, basically going north-south. So what Weager's going to do is he's going to step up very aggressively, maintain that gap,

force the team to either dump the puck in or turn it over himself. And have one of the best defensive defenseman covering for him in case he over. Exactly. And so all of a sudden when you have a pairing of him and Chris Tanna, not only does that take pressure off of Rasm Sanders and Noel Hannafin, who, based on their performance against McDavid in the playoffs when Tandah was hurt, I think they could certainly use a bit of that pressure relief. It gives them one of the best rush defenders paired with one of the best in-zone defenders.

And the way Calgary plays also is they're very tight-knit in terms of their breakouts. So they have a lot of kind of short outlets for a defenseman to pass the puck out to as well. So I think that's going to help Uyghur in terms of when he's being pressured when he goes back to play the puck, because all of a sudden he's not going to have to make these home run plays as often or he's not going to have to do as much himself, assuming he's at this point of his career willing to kind of readjust. It could also limit the number of those backbreaking mistakes he makes if he has much more simple plays where he can kind of kick it off to his winger

and let him kind of get out of the zone as opposed to trying to do something crazy that turns over the puck. Yeah, and so one of the things you were talking about on one of, on an old episode with Thomas Drance after the trade was if the flames were able to extend him before the season and limit the pressure he's under. And so they did that. They gave him an eight-year deal,

a little over $6 million. And so he's kind of, he's beyond that pressure now. So he can just play hockey, do what he wants to do. And yeah, a staple of Daryl Sutter teams is both those short breakout passes and also winning a lot of battles in the neutral zone and just making sure that the puck is always being shot

into the other end of the ice. and Wegar helped you do both things. And yeah, those two mistakes in the playoffs were looking at the turnover against Washington that led to an Afghani Kuznetsov breakaway goal. There was no Panther within 40 feet of him when he gave up the puck there. And then there was another turnover that led to a blown coverage

that led to Ross Colton scoring with under a second to go in game two against Tampa Bay. And same sort of thing. When he had the puck at the blue line, he's on the far right side and he's looking at no one close to him and all of a sudden all of a sudden you move it

yeah come back the other way and now you have to think you're tired you're at the end of the shift I got to protect yeah it's it's harder to do so having that support is yeah key for a guy like that they're going to be able to insulate them kind of cover up all of his weaknesses and really just focus on his strengths and I think he's going to be awesome in Calgary yeah um okay I'll do one more here before we uh

before we take a quick break Jack Hughes. And this one's cheating a bit because... Because this is your second first overall pick? Well, yeah. I mean, those guys tend to be pretty good. You know, you could argue he already broke out last season, right? Like, he already sort of realized some of that potential we were waiting to see from him

early in his career and answered a lot of the questions people might have still had. But that's why we're not doing breakouts anymore because we're just doing most exciting players. And I, as excited as people might be about him already, I think, collectively, we haven't caught on to it enough. I don't think we've been talking nearly enough about how good he was last year when he was fully healthy. And that's because he got hurt in like the second game in the season or whatever. And then he missed a bunch of time. He came back.

He clearly wasn't fully himself yet. Then there was a Christmas break. Then he had 35 games which were about as good as anyone on his planet played in that time. And then he got hurt again near the end of the regular season. And so this amazing stretch of games he played was kind of sandwiched by injuries. And he was playing on a devil's team that once again had a lost season and didn't live up to expectations and wound up getting a high pick. And so I think it's getting overshadowed a little bit. But what I'm going to say is in those 35 games that I watched, he was playing at such a high level.

Like he had 21 goals, 27 assists. But that almost doesn't even do justice to how in command of the game he was and how we saw him answer all of those questions. Right. Like when he came out, it was, okay, well, you know, his physique, he's not going to be strong. have to play against grown men. Well, he looked perfectly fine, protecting the puck and dancing around the neutral zone and the offensive zone and doing whatever he wanted with it against whoever he was playing against. Okay, well, you know, his shot is weak. He can't beat goalies one-on-one at this level. Well, he started shooting significantly more, and he started scoring on those shots significantly more,

and the shooting percentage might be slightly inflated last year. Like, I'm not expecting him to be a 16% shooter or whatever, but it might be within his range of outcomes because he's an extremely talented player, so I don't see why he couldn't beat goalies cleanly in a consistent basis. And so if you're telling me he's always going to have the puck on a stick and he's going to be able to beat you with his pass and his shot now all of a sudden, I don't want to get crazy talking about like, you know, our Art Ross potential here because Connor McDavid is still in the league. And I think betting on anyone other than him to win the points title is probably just burning money at this point. But I think last I checked the books had, he was like 80 to 1 or

something and he was like 20th on the list of of favorites. And I think it is well within his range of outcomes this season to just explode for 120 points if everything goes well and he stays healthy. It wouldn't surprise me. And it's an interesting thing. You talk about his shot. And yeah, you mentioned you know, 6% shooting is first year, 8% is second year and then breaks out 16%. We always look at these players as, you know, they're one or two years in the league. They're not finished products. Yeah. If a player like Hughes has been so good at every other aspect of the the game, he knows what his weakness is. And someone who's really, someone who's, someone with that level of talent also knows

where he can also improve on. And he, and I, and there was, there was never any issue with me watching him. I never thought, oh, this guy shoots muffins. It was a, it was a good release. Uh, in the first year or two, though, there were some, there were some ones where you kind of squib it towards a net. I think he definitely needed to get stronger and work on a shot. And he certainly did.

Yeah. I, I, I just don't think I ever really saw one where, where he's like, where he's really like struggling to lift it in the air. Yeah, yeah. Well, he's also like he was like a 20 year old undersized guy to begin with. Like, of course it's going to take time for him to get to where he needs to be physically. So I don't think there's any rush to do that and he already has. And it was when I was watching him in his, in his sophomore season,

I just figured that that was, he had everything going for him, except the shot. I agree with you. I love, I've loved watching Jack Hughes through those through every year he's played. It's just once he got that shot down. And the amazing thing is for as good as he was, the devils were outscored with him on the ice at 5-15, which is hilarious. The devil's goalies stopped 87.6% of the shots they face with them out there.

And I guess, you know, the Cracken were probably what they got out of their goalies was probably 32nd. I think what the Devils got out of their goalies, though, was right up there in terms of league worse. Like they used seven different goalies. they gave up over 60 more goals against than expected, I believe, based on some of the data. Like, it's just, I'm expecting a better infrastructure around him based on the players they added this offseason. And with his own individual talent, now they brought in a guy like Palatho and all of a sudden do some of the dirty work and win the battles in Forge.

I can get him the puck more often. It's going to take a lot of that other pressure and allow him to just focus on being an incredibly gifted offensive player who can create a goal out of nothing. and that's what we saw last year, and I want him to kind of keep building on that. So I think there's really a lot of reason to expect him to take as big of a leap as he took last year, follow that up again this year, and really get into the conversation as like one of the best offensive weapons we have in the game. Yeah, and I think you mentioned Palat. That's when New Jersey announced that signing, I called it Inspired.

I thought one of the issues with the Devils last year, obviously their goaltending was a big one, but their offense, as good as it was, as fun as it was to watch, was very one-dimensional, a lot of just, and a lot of trying to create off the rush. And you need to be able to create in many different ways. I think two of the best offenses in the league, Tampa Bay and Toronto, very forecheck heavy. And Palat brings that experience,

being able to do that with skill players in Tampa Bay, playing on those top roles, playing, sorry, playing in that top line with those players. get the puck to skill guys dig it in the corners well and you mentioned cori Schneider's data earlier i believe he had i think the abs and the and the panthers were the top two teams in terms of creating off the rush last year the devils were third yeah behind those teams now those team teams were also really good at creating everywhere including off the cycle and off the core check and i believe the devils were 21st or something last i checked on

on core schneider's tracking and so if they can improve that to be above league average as well which is there's no reason they shouldn't be able to based on the players they have they can all of a sudden beat you in different ways and kind of play more of that traditional competitive playoff hockey against best teams that we expect rather than just being kind of this running gun back and forth team that can only beat you in one isolated way. Yeah, and improving the defense, I liked their addition of John Marino as well. I think that they're, they kind of have a really competent top four. I don't know if they're, if it's great like puck moving,

but it should be enough to hold down the fort defensively. I really like Jonas Seagantaller. Yeah. Damon Zeverson can move it a little bit. Dougie Hamilton's still around. Yeah. But yeah, they need to, they just really need to lock it down, make their hockey, make their games look a little bit more like professional hockey and less like shinny.

Yeah, and they did a good job. I mean, not that it was particularly difficult based on how obvious their deficiencies were last year, but at least they did a good job of identifying that they kind of needed to diversify their players and went after guys who could kind of conceivably fill that without necessarily like, panicking and just getting meat and potatoes guys purely. Guys like John Marino and Andre Palat are just good hockey players who can contribute in different ways.

I mean, they went after Andre Palad after losing it on Johnny Goddrow, but... Yeah, it would have been interesting to see them just double down on that and just go with Goddrault. And Hughes might have been a bit of over-overkill in terms of what those guys, how they want to attack you, but whatever. All right, Cam, we're going to take a little break here

and carry on with the rest of our list after this. You are listening to the HockeyPedio cast with Dimitri Filipovich. And we're back with the Hockeypede. We're doing DeMille Fulovich and Cammshire on on the Sportsnet Radio Network. Cam, we're doing players. We're excited to watch this season. We've already done Owen Power, Jack Hughes,

McKenzie Weigar, Jamie Drysdale. Who's the next person on your list? I have Miro Heiskenen from the Dallas Stars. And Dallas was a very difficult team to watch last season. They have made a coaching change. And I'm hoping. I'm hoping beyond hope that they open it up a little bit more. We need to let Miro cook.

And unironically, unlike when we say we need to let Russ cook, and then we've seen him cook cafeteria meals this season, basically. We need to let Miro actually play to his strengths. Now, I think he's been in league for four years. We've already seen him play at, you know, pretty much an Norris caliber level. Like I really thought, like, if I had a battle last year, I would have had maybe fourth or fifth on my list. He was that good.

But it feels like for a player who clearly, like, his skating is amongst the best in the league in terms of just how fluid his stride is, how much ground he can cover, and how much skill he clearly has, and we see flashes of it. He hasn't really been allowed to show that beyond, like, small flashes here or there, because that just not how the stars have played. Instead, he's almost kind of had to babysit defensively. Like, it's bonkers to me that throughout his career so far, he's pretty much exclusively played, either with well below average defense partners

or even having to play on his weak side because he's so good that he can do so and they don't have anyone else. So now it looks like they're actually kind of finally bumping him to the left. It seems like they're going to play him with Colin Miller to start the season and actually play him on his natural strong side. And I think there's reason to hope. I wouldn't necessarily call Pete DeBurr an offensive savant by any means,

but compared to Rick Bonas, like at least we've seen him in his previous stops in San Jose, and in Vegas where he had Brent Burns, Eric Carlson, then Shea Theodore and Alex Petrangelo. He like geared their offense and funneled it through them and allowed them to kind of dictate what they were going to do, be involved, activate whenever they wanted to. And so I am so hopeful that that's what's going to happen here with Heiskenen. We've been burned for long enough now, but I think this is the year where we finally just see the full potential of what he's capable of. So this could be a larger thing about what we need to, what we need out. of the Dallas stars just as remember remember like eight years ago eight 10 years ago the stars were one of

the best teams to watch they had they were all offense they had no defense under lindy rough of course yeah so they scored 238 goals last year that was by far the lowest total for any playoff team they really didn't make any offensive improvements in over the off season no so mason marchman ain't it as fun as Mason Marchment can be when he's really going. I don't think that he's a guy you can plug in and expect to score 30 goals and cover that gap. We have seen him capable of playing with pace if he's surrounded by the players and push the page. But my point is that for Dallas to improve offensively, which they have to do, they're going to have to open it up. They're going to have to, as you say, let Miro Cook.

So they were a one-line team last year. It's a very good line, Rupa Hintz, centering Jason Robertson and Joe Pavelski. And here's some statistics. Always. All right. So the star's goals four per 60 minutes at five on five with their top line and Mero Heiskenen on the ice. Yeah. 4.6.

Okay. Now, NHL average is about 2.3. Yeah, yeah. So they're scoring twice more than the NHL average. That's good. With Heiskenen and their first line on the ice together. And they had 61% of coursey. Yeah.

With none of those players on the ice, they scored 1.6 goals per 60 minutes. Yeah. 46%. And pretty much every team is going to be a lot worse without anyone from their, of course, from their top line, top fair. But the stars just had absolutely nothing beyond that.

So what we need is them to open it up when mirror is on the ice and the top line isn't. And we need a bit more scoring depth. Well, we also saw there was no, there was no one more extreme in terms of parking the bus than the stars last year. Like if they went up, it was like, we're just going to lock it down and absolutely not try anything whatsoever.

Well, there was a more extreme example. the stars in the 20, 21 season. But I mean like the lack of offensive ambition from that team, like they were literally trying to do the absolute bare minimum to squeak by. Yeah. Right. And not that they have this amazing roster, but listen, like, Heiskenen, Jason Robertson,

Rupert Hince, even Joe Povilski still, like they, like they have players that are good enough to play in a different, different kind of stylistic format, right? And they just had no experimentation to that beyond like, those guys would be so good. did they almost have to break free from the system just because they were capable of. But trying their best to win every game two to one. Yeah. Keep it one, one on evens and then maybe score a goal in the power play. And we saw in like in the first round of series,

especially in that game seven against the flames. Like, because of the urgency of the moment, you could see that Eisenend was like, you know what, forget the system. I'm just going to start freelancing and just carrying the puck up the ice and trying to create myself. And I was like, I want this all the time. Yeah. Like not that it's realistic to expect game seven of a playoff series level.

intensity for all 82, but just that mindset of pushing the pace and trying to attack constantly. And so I'd like to hope that that's what we're going to see for this year from your Heiskenen. They're going to let him cook. And I think that's a great pick. Great pick by you. Well, thank you, Tim.

All right, let's do the next guy on my list then. Let's do a last Patterson. Oh. Let's talk a little bit. I was just on with our pal Thomas Drenz before this, and we were kind of hinting at it a little bit. You know, there was understandably a lot of

with Pedersen's performance at the start of last year. He was starting this mega contract that he had just signed. I believe through the first 25 games, Luke Shen had twice as many five on five points as Pedersen did, even though Pedersen had played in all those games. You know, there was clearly a lot of issues in terms of the coaching, the way they were trying to play. I think a much more realistic explanation of what went into his performance, though, was that he was pretty clearly getting back to full health with his wrist after having spent pretty much the entire offseason just trying to get healthy and not being able to do his regular training

and getting gearing up for the season. And the player that I saw in the first half compared to the second half in terms of his willingness to fire, how his shot looked, and how often it was going in was night and day. And it was much more in line with the player we'd seen and kind of grown to love in his first two years. And so if you're telling me that you're going to have that version of Elias Pedersen all season on a power play that I expect to be absolutely deadly,

that's going to lead to a lot of goals. And I'm going to be really excited because when Patterson is kind of just hammering it from that right circle, like it's a thing of beauty. He can beat any goalie, cleanly, bar down, no problem about it. And we saw him do that with increasing frequency last year as the season went along. And so I'm hopeful that that's the version of the player we're going to see for the entirety of this year. So when was the last time that he was healthy to start a year? I think because I remember at some point, I think it was during the 2021 season.

He just kind of, he didn't show up in the starting lineup. And then he was just missing for a three or four week stretch. Well, I mean, the player that we saw like in those bubble playoffs is the player that. That's the one I want to see. That's the player that I have in my mind and the player that I want to see him channel and be. And I think he's capable of. Yeah. And I think it's a pretty clear.

I don't think it was like a motivation thing or coaching or a contract thing. I think he was not healthy enough. And then now he is and hopefully that'll continue. And I don't know, do you want to like kind of pivot and talk about this power play a little bit? Because I know it's one that you've been fascinated with quite a bit. And just kind of sort of the philosophy of sort of how you want to, how you'd ideally want to structure your power play.

Because I think we're getting past that point of, all right, well, you have the one go-to guy and you just kind of trying to funnel everything through him. and make it incredibly predictable. It can look good when it works, but if the other team knows it's coming, it's probably not the ideal strategy. I have one of my pet peeves

is when Alex Ovechkin scores a goal on the power play. There's a lot of talk on Twitter or wherever. Why did you let Alex Ovechkin take that shot? And one of the reasons why I hate seeing that so much is because the capitals are really inefficient because they try and roll everything through Ovechkin. The Canucks are a lot different. they set up a similar shot.

It's on the other side of the ice. It's Hughes to Pedersen as opposed to Carlson to Ovechkin. But while Ovechkin only takes that shot, like 36% of capital shots are Ovechkins. That's by far the highest shot share. With the Canucks, it was only 26%. So it's a much bigger difference in that it's taken enough that can be effective,

but it can also be used as a decoy. Yeah. So what that does is that opens up, this ability for the three guys on the other side, J.T. Miller, Bo Horvatt, and it was Brock Besser. I think I was hearing earlier that Connor Garland is moving into that spot at the start of the season. I think Dranser is trying to make that happen, yeah. Well, I would love that because that's the exact kind of person you want in front of the net, just a small guy that can get to rebounds quickly and score.

So the Canucks have two different power plays working. They're setting up three different shots, and they're all very effective shots. And when the other team is one less skater out there, chances are, Like, it really is pick your poison. Eventually, you're going to get it to someone who's open if you are that confident in all of those guys being an actual weapon as opposed to just kind of just standing there. Yeah, and which way do you cheat towards? Right. You have five legitimate scoring threats on the ice.

Even Hughes can take a slap shot. It's not ideal, but thankfully, the connects don't have to do it often. Yeah. Well, let me give you to finish this point on Pedersen. First 37 games last year, six goals, 79 shots on net, 33 high-dangered chances. Final 43 games, so basically splitting it right down in the middle, a bit extra in the second half, 26 goals in the final 343 games, 113 shots on hit, 49-eyed major chances. And I went back and watched all of those goals.

I would say about like 17 or 18 of them were like the classic Elias Pedersen when he's at his best, just gets the puck. It's a one-on-one versus the goalie from a fair distance and just picking his spot in the net and beating him cleanly. And so that would inspire a lot of confidence that he's back and this is what he's going to do. and so I'm really excited to see how many goals he's capable of scoring now that he is healthy. Yeah, and it's very key to the Canucks and any playoff aspirations they may have. And yeah, as you mentioned, he's not only a guy that can beat a goalie from distance, but he can beat a goalie from distance through Defender.

He doesn't have to get around that last man to create a good chance for himself. Okay. So give me your last player here that's one of Cam's guys. We're going to leave the highway from Vancouver and take Highway 99 down to Interstate 5. Okay.

And we're going to talk about Maddie Baneers from the Seattle Cracken. Yep. So you have a few notes about the Cracken here. Their goaltending was a big issue last year. Yeah. The biggest issue, I think. It was the biggest issue.

But they weren't a great offensive team either. You have them at 28th and scoring. 28th and goals, 27th, the shooting percentage, yeah. So they've upgraded a little bit, like based on where they were at last trade deadline, they've added Baneers, who came up from college.

They added Oliver Berksbrand via trade. They added Andre Birokowski. For a signing, yeah. Via signing. And like we mentioned with Andre Pallat and the devil's inspired signing, I think that those are very inspired choices. I think that that makes the crack and a lot more diversified in their attack as well. What I love about Beniers is his release is outstanding.

He was, he scored 20 goals in the NCAA last year. He was third, that was third among junior age players. But just the type of goal that went in. He's not, he's not getting in close and whacking at it. He's beating goalies from clean from distance. The puck jumps off his stick so fast. And we saw it in the preseason as well, you know, over the couple lines. like when he hammers the puck, like, it's an NHL level shot.

Absolutely. Yeah. So, yeah, he was doing at the end of the last season. He scored three goals in his, I think it was seven or eight games. And he worked, it worked really well. They were on a power, he was on a power play with Jared McCann. And they were just playing off each other. McCann being able to take the shots on the left side and Benares on the right.

And they haven't been doing that in the preseason. I think they will eventually go back to it. but Baneers is playing with McCann at five on five in the preseason. They're also with Berkowski. And I think Berkowski, like Palat, is one of those guys that can dig for pucks, set up the skill players. And preseason is what it is. I don't love talking about it.

But absent a big sample size of NHL. Yeah, that's all we have to go off. This is really what we have to go off. That line outshot the. their opponents 22 to 7 in 21 and a half minutes together. Outscore them 2-0. I don't think that that's as important, but they were controlling play when they were together.

And I love the potential of that power play once they get Baneers moving up onto the top unit. Well, listen, like we, similar to what we said with the devils, I think it's a very key trait for any team is being able to critically evaluate your own limitations and then act upon them, right? the goaltending was not good enough, regardless of how many goals they scored. Now, considering the investment they made in Philip Rubauer, they kind of have no choice at this point other than to just hope he reverts back to some league average level. Like, he's clearly not going to be, you know, Vezna level numbers that he was in his last season

in Colorado. I don't think anyone's expecting that. As long as he's not literally the 30-second ranked starting goalie, I think that'll be okay. Like it'll be an upgrade for them. And so they kind of have to ride that out. Their offense was just as bad. And they actually went and targeted guys who are shot makers. Yeah. Right. Like Bjork Strand and Burkowski do it in different ways, but they're both above average finishers who get to dangerous areas. Yeah. And that's something that this team needed because, and we'll see, it might still be the case because Dave Haxthal is their coach, but there might be a lot of point shots,

and those are suboptimal efficiency shots. And if they funnel their entire offense through that, then it might not matter. But at least they have options now of guys who can get the puck into premium real estate and score from there, which is what besides McCann, they didn't really have that for much of last season.

And so now that they have different weapons in different ways they can kind of allocate those resources, I'm not expecting them to suddenly jump up to top five or top 10, but I wouldn't expect them to be 27th or 28th in shooting percentage like they were this past season. And even a guy like McCann, I think he had a strong season last year, but he was never really much more of a third liner anywhere else he's been. Those were good teams he was on in Pittsburgh and Florida. No, I'm just talking purely in terms of like his shot.

Yeah. Is like one of the few like guys who couldn't just consistently beat a goalie that they had. And now they have different options. Yeah. So now their their top six itself just looks like a much more, you know, it looks more like a hockey team. Yeah. And I think, I think that one of the reasons screwbauer struggled had a lot to do with their defense. well, yeah, he wasn't in Colorado anymore.

Yeah, so that's going to have to be cleaned up quite a bit. I still don't like their goaltending. I don't like their defensive group, but their forward should be fun to watch. Yeah, they made strides. Yeah. And that's all you can really ask for in year, too. Okay, my final player that I'm excited to watch this season, Matt Boldie. So we got a sample of him last year.

When he got called up to the wild, it's pretty clear that he totally changed Minnesota's look, right? They had that combination of Caprizov, Zuccarello, and Hartman riding shotgun with them. And that was one of the best top lines in the league. Kevin Fiala was really struggling for those first couple months. And then they called up Boldie in January, I believe. And those two clicked instantly.

And they had great chemistry, and they really fed off each other. And they played, like, their stylistic strengths really complemented each other. Now, Fiala is not there anymore this season. So I think it's going to take an adjustment, and it might be a bit more of an uphill battle for Boldie. to replicate that success. But what I saw from him, in terms of playing style, had me so excited about this player,

because it's rare that you see a young player step into the league and immediately have as refined a game as he did in terms of his board battles, in terms of how good he was in the forecheck, in terms of how good he was at protecting the puck, even though he's still pretty kind of lanky and young and clearly put on more weight and more muscle and more strength as the years go on.

And so he already had all these details to his game that I really liked. So I'm really curious to see how he expands on that, you know, how they use him. Now that Fiala's not there on the one hand, he doesn't have that kind of elite running made anymore on that second line. But there's also that creates opportunity, right? Like they have young players that can potentially step in and seize that role. And that's what they're banking on. And so I think people were initially expecting Minnesota to really take a step back this season because they viewed these buyout windows

that were coming up in terms of like 15% of their cap is tied up on Paris and suitors contracts. And so they were like, I don't know how this team's going to be able to compete and keep all these players. And they had to cut costs in terms of letting Fiala go. But I'm pretty high on them heading into this season. I think most projected models have them into hundreds

in terms of points kind of right on the heels of the aves for second place in the central. And I think that's right. Like I think they're not really going to miss that much of a beat. a lot of that is going to rely on Boldy replicating the success he had in the final, whatever 40 games or so last year. Yeah, and you need, they needed young efficient players to come up and, because they're playing with a lower cap than everyone else.

So you're looking at Boldie, you're looking at Marco Rossi, who's going to make the team out of camp. Connor Duar and Brando Du Hame are both off their entry-level deals, but they're still, they can lock down that fourth line, which is good for. for guys like Rossi who aren't going to have to worry about where they fit on the team. They can come up and they can play in that top line. And there's a lot of easy minutes in that top line, in that top nine, really. You can play with Eric Seneck and Greenway and Fulino, any other combination of that, and you're on a group, that group is going to be defensively responsible.

You can play with Carol Caprisov, who's one of the top playmakers in the NHL. Yeah. It's a one of the top scores as well. I think they're going to keep that Caprizo, Zikarello's a Corello-Hartman combination together. But in case of injury, right? Right, right, of course. Yeah. It's good at options.

You can put these guys wherever and you're not going to be in trouble. Yeah. And I think that just the, it's amazing the amount of depth that team is able to have, despite having a cap number that's $10 million less than other teams. Yeah, I know this isn't like the most exciting thing to say, but it's like the thing I love about Boldie is he's able to grind out possessions already and beat you in like very boring ways. Like he's got so much skill and he can, you know, in space,

he can dangle around you and score highlight real goals, which we saw from him last year. But already, as a young player, he's able to get the puck off the wall and make a play. He's able to, you know, kind of pursue it and wreck havoc on an opposing defenseman and keep the other team pinned in their own zone. And those aren't qualities you typically associate with a first-year player. Like a lot of young guys coming to the league and they want to play that shini, right?

Like they want to play back and forth, running gun. They're used to playing in space. They're coming from a level of hockey that probably wasn't, they were the best player and no one could really, you know, compete with them. So they were used to just doing whatever they wanted. And you come to NHL and it's a quick wake-up call that you've got to be able to be effective in different ways. And for him to just immediately, seamlessly do that out of the gate should inspire a lot of confidence.

Yeah, so I watched a fair bit of Minnesota Wild Games recently. I was doing a piece for the athletic. And I was very impressed by Boldie. in what you mentioned, both very good, very good working with Fiala in the offensive zone. But, you know, I came into the studio today and you showed me this clip of him. He lost the puck to Tyler Bowes. He was the game against St. Louis. He lost the puck to Tyler Bozac.

Immediately kicked the puck off Bozac stick to himself. Yeah. Took it behind the net. Made a move around. Well, Bozac passed him off to Letty. He beat Bozzi again as well. Yeah. And then he did it, though, with a really nifty move, like in.

without any space, like right up against the boards. And yet, it's fun that we talk about those shini players. And that works in the regular season to an extent. And one thing I've learned is that when you get into the playoffs, you need to create offense an entirely different type of way because you are not playing against Nick Letty 10 minutes a game in the playoffs. In the playoffs, you're seeing the other team's top team.

if you're a top forward, especially if you're a young one, and they're going to match on you in a 3-0-0 game in a way they wouldn't otherwise. So you need to be able to, you need to have a bunch of different tools in your toolbox,

in a big arsenal. I think that boldie's kind of got that. He's got that playmaking gene. Yeah. He's got that shiftyness, and he's also got that grindiness. Oh, he seems like the type of player where anyone they put with them

is going to instantly, enjoy life playing with him because he's just going to get them to puck in ideal situations. And that's what we saw with Fiala last year. Yeah. And another thing, too, is that as soon as he made the lineup high, he was on the second line, I think, and Dean Eveson never sent him down. No. You never put him on the fourth line, never made a healthy scratch.

You didn't give them any reason to. Yeah. And you know you come in instantly, you're a young player, and you can, you've already got your coaches trust. That's a really good sign. All right, Cam. Well, we go all day here. got a lot of notes that go very deep on Mikey Anderson and Martin Fair of R.E.

And a lot of players that I'm sure people have never really given much thought to. But unfortunately, we're going to have to put a pin in here. Our hour is up. I'll let you plug some stuff here real quick. What have you been working on? Where can people check out your work and give the listeners all that stuff? Well, I recently had a piece of The Athletic about the Carolina Hurricanes and specifically what they do defensively to help out their goal.

goalies. So that's at the athletic for you VIPs. I'm going to be doing some postgame stuff following Vancouver Canucks in Toronto Maple Leafs games this year. And that's still TBD. And then coming on the PDO cast a lot, right? And then, yeah, then just be joining you on the PDO cast. It's nice to be able to see you. I love it, man. Well, it's good to be back. Yeah, so the bad news is the show is up. Our hour is up here. We're done for today. But the good news is that you won't have to wait much long. because we're going to be back here same time, same place tomorrow, 2 p.m. Pacific for an hour as we transition into this new schedule with the PDO cast being on the SportsN Radio Network.

So this is a blast, Cam. Thanks for coming on for the first show. Thank you to all the listeners for hopping on for the ride and looking forward to what's to come this season.