The Hockey PDOcast - Mailbag Questions about New Systems, Defensive Results, and How to Fix Things

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Jack Han to answer listener questions about implementing new systems during the season, the impact of handedness on defensemen, who drives a team's underlying defensive��results, and how to fix notably lagging things like Minnesota's penalty kill, Pittsburgh's power play, and New Jersey's 5-on-5 play. If you'd like to participate the conversation and get in on future editions of the mailbag, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's Discord 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. 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 Filippovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedio guest. My name's Dimitra Filippovich, and joining me is my good buddy, Jack, Han. Jack, what's going on, man? Thankful that my son's first cold is not worse than it is. Yes, we're all thinking, well, your voice sounds great. Hopefully my voice sounds good. I'm remote today. We're recording this from a hotel room in Seattle here. I'm here on a Black Friday to take in Canucks, cracking this evening. So hopefully all goes smoothly. But this is the, this is the beauty of podcasting and radio. We can, uh, we can make it work with technology these days. So, uh, we're going to do a Friday mailbag. We've been doing these for the past couple weeks now. They've been really fun, nice way to get the listeners involved, make it a bit of an interactive process and end the week

with some fun, thought provoking stuff. If you want to get involved with a future edition of the mailbag, since we're doing these every Friday now, just join the PDOCAST Discord server where we're going to be today's questions from a lot of good stuff from our listeners, a lot of good conversation going on in there. So the invite link is in the show notes. If you can't find it, just shoot me a message. I will gladly pass it along and get in there and join the community where we're building up there. Okay, Jack, here's the first question from David Castillo, friend of the podcast. I've been thinking about weak defensive teams in particular, their weak defense within their top centers individually. Conversely, a team like the Dallas Stars, for example, doesn't necessarily

have an all-world blue line, but their centers are all strong defensively, and the team as a whole winds up grading out elite defensively. While defenders have gone positionless, centers have not. Have we reached a point where team defense is built primarily through its center position rather than the blue line? I think this is a really fun question for us to start with because it's very philosophical, and I think that's what you and I do best here whenever you join the show and kind of tactical certainly, but allows us to sort of think about the game. where it's at these days and what really matters and what moves the needle and drives the bus. How do you feel about that, Jack? So this is going to be a complex question to unpack

because there's a lot of pieces. The first piece is if we talk about positions, right, like most teams now, especially in offensive situations, they're going to play F1, F2, F3, which means whoever's first is F1 and F2, so on and so forth, right? So the, the, the, the, the, The center really is obviously the center takes the faceoffs and then the center has certain responsibilities following face off, but it's less and less obvious who the center is because you know all three forwards are going to interchange in and out. That's the first part. The second part is that the thing that really guides my thinking on this is a passage from a soccer analytics book I read a long time ago. It might have been soccermatic. I'm not 100% sure.

but in like the the author cites a set a player tracking study that was done in soccer whereby certain players they dictate the action because they're the first on their team to respond to situation and then his teammates are actually reading off of him so it's actually sort of like leadership in action where you know if you're the first person to maybe stop or change direction in anticipation to a turnover for example your line mates are going to see you do that and they're going to think, oh, maybe I should go that way because, you know, because I trust, you know, this teammates read. And I think one of the best examples of this is Patrice Burjong.

Like if you watch him over the years, like normally speaking on a 50-50 puck, he's a first person to react, incredibly effective center, right? So, so yes, you know, forwards are right or changeable than ever. But if you want to be a center who's, you know, a good two-way player or defensively sound, then preferably you're going to be the guy to first react to any sort of an unforeseen event. So I think that's really important. And if you look at a lot of the centers with really great kind of two-way reputation, so whether it's Copatar or Kuturier or, you know, Crosby or, you name it,

if you just follow the play a little bit and watch them when they're off the puck, they tend to make an early read and an accurate read more often than not. So I think that's really important. The other part of it is, so David mentioned defensemen, you know, play more positionalist and activating. So now we're going to find the low forward, typically is a setter, doing a lot more defensive than things. So they may be, you know, back first to retrieve a puck on the back wall in their defensive

zone. They may be helping out boxing out of front of the net. They may be filling in for pinching defensemen and taking on the rush, you know, whether it's standing forward or backwards. So yeah, like there's a lot to it, but also it's not really necessarily baked into the system. But if you're a center with those characteristics, you're naturally going to take on those responsibilities. And that's why it's so tough to identify or acquire these elite play driving centers because basically what you're asking to do is to be two places at once, right? Like, they can either be on the offensive side or on the defensive side,

and it's up to them in the moment to make that read. Well, there's a couple, I mean, there's a lot to unpack there. There's a couple different ways, certainly, to host good defensive results and particularly underlying numbers. In today's game, there's the sort of lightly used winger that generally just keeps the puck along the boards and doesn't necessarily, nothing happens. It's very low event. Nothing really happens either way.

when they're on the ice, I'm thinking of a prime Zach Aston Reese, for example. And I think maybe wrongly, you could look at some of those defensive metrics and say, wow, this person should be a Selky favor, or at least a Selky candidate. Their defensive metrics are so sparkling. But in reality, just given their responsibilities and what they're being asked to do and how they're being used, I don't necessarily think that resembles good defense. It's really just a void of anything happening, right? the other guys are generally players who are going to be controlling the puck in the offensive zone and just keeping the puck down there and building these extended shifts where they're just leaning on you and cycling the puck and creating chance after chance and those are typically just the best

players in the game for the most part and so when we say that the best defense is a good offense or whatever i think there certainly is something to it now if you're very rush dependent right and you're just kind of opening the game up and trading chances that's probably going to wind up your defensive results down and that's a bit of a different conversation. But I don't know. I know that Daryl Belfrey, for example, always one of his things that he always likes to hit is that the, the offensive zone should really be where you actually do all the hard work. Like it shouldn't necessarily be thought of as the place where you just go and have fun. It's certainly glamorous and you get to go out there and do fun stuff with the puck and try to score goals. But you also,

as soon as you lose possession, that's where the recovery starts, right? You have to start, if you're a defenseman, you start pinching, you start surfing, you start trying to cut guys off before they can build up speed through the neutral zone. If you're a forward, it's on you to go and grind out that possession and try to recover it to help your defensemen so they're not having to now skate backwards and defend against the rush. So all of the stuff kind of ties together and works together. But I certainly think there is something to it that your top forwards will probably dictate how good you are defensively because I think what they're being tasked with with the way the game is being played today, starting deep in the offensive zone,

is kind of the more of the burden, I guess, is on their plate than maybe it used to be previously. Yeah, again, if you're a really elite sentiment in the NHL, you're basically being asked to do two jobs, right? Like, whether it's on offense, whether it's on defense, you just got to be really good at recognizing. And, you know, I was listening to the most recent episode with Darrell that you did. And when you guys get to Sasha Barkov, just notice how often he's actually. getting back and playing defense almost. So I'll just throw it out. No, certainly.

He always stays about the puck in that regard. And I think that's also something I've come around to a lot where I remember I used to track during the postseason how defensemen were defending the rush, for example, right? If they were standing up at the blue line, if they were forcing dump ins, if they were causing turnovers or whether they were allowing the other team to carry the puck in. And maybe this is less so true in the playoffs where generally, you know, the quality of the game and the players being involved in playing big roles is hired to begin with. than you see in the regular season where there's just some bad teams and some bad players involved.

But the support you have from your forwards as a defenseman and how much they close that gap and how they're backtracking and how they're preventing the other team from just being able to skate freely through the neutral zone is going to have a direct impact on how the defenseman looks like, right? Because all of a sudden, if they're left on an island, most of them are going to sag back as a form of sort of self-preservation and just let you carry the puck in. whereas if they know that their center is right on your tail as a puck carrier and he's pinching behind you, they're going to feel more emboldened to step up and contest it. And that's probably going to lead to more positive defensive results. So the two are kind of inextricably linked together,

I guess, in a way. Yeah, that's hockey. That's hockey, baby. Okay, anything else on this question or do you want to move on to the next one? I think there was, I mean, there was so much an unpack that we probably could do a full tactical show on just team defense. and kind of who's responsible for what and what actually matters. But I think that was like a good little bite-sized entry into the conversation to start today's show. Yeah, we got a lot on the menu, so maybe move on the next. Okay, well, speaking of a strong defense, let's talk about this year's Minnesota Wild. Jack here, not Jack Hahn, but another Jag.

There's many of them who listen to this show asks. Where are the Wild going wrong this year? Are their best players just not cutting it? it a negative PDO, is Dean Eveson not utilizing his players properly? The roster looks pretty good on paper, but they're just not getting the results so far. Now they have a 5, 8, and 4 record. At the time of recording, they've trailed. I believe still a league high nearly like 50% of their game time. And I think for the most part, if you look at that roster, it's one that I know sometimes in these chaotic situations, especially with their top players, they can come out ahead and

they can benefit from it. But for the most part, I think they're an ideally set up. up to play from my head and kind of play that way as opposed to being down so often and then having to open things up and try to aggressively get back into the game. But I don't know, how do we look at what's wrong with this year's Wild team and sort of what's to blame most? Because certainly when you're 5-8 and 4 the way they are and it's looked as ugly as it has, I don't think it's necessarily just one thing. Yeah. So I actually watched quite a bit of the Wild's PK recently because I, I did. like a video breakdown on my newsletter on them and arguably the worst PK in hockey right now.

And the thing that I found really interesting is that, you know, systematically or structurally, they're playing the same PK as last season. But the only difference is that so Spirgin was out for a bit. You know, Fred Godreau was out for a little bit. And it just looks like everybody else just are not on the same page. Like they're passive when they should be aggressive. and they're aggressive when they should be passive, so they end up looking really. Well, what do we attribute that to then?

Because you mentioned that some of the personnel is different for the most part, though. They have had a fair bit of continuity with this roster. And it's bizarre to see that penalty kill. I believe right now they're giving up like 14 goals against per hour or so. They're making every power play they come across look like last year's historically great Edmonton Oilers man advantage. So that certainly is not, I guess. deal and I think that the combination of that and the goaltending clearly, which was a strength for

them last year, has regressed as well. You know, Philip Gustafson had played 38 games last year, and I still think it was fair to have him in the Vesna conversation because on a per game basis, he was that good. Like, even the private models graded him out as the most efficient goalie in the league. He had plus 18 goals seem above expected last year in his 38 games. Now him and Flurry are minus 11 combined. So even when they're facing these opportunities, they're not getting the job done. So without that support behind it,

it seems like it's all kind of converging and snowballing into this one big defensive mess. Yeah, like, I mean, obviously goalies are hard to predict. And I'm not going to, I don't really have much to offer on that, but certainly, you know,

last year they got goal, good goaltending addition. They haven't. But even independent from that, like, it just seems to be that they haven't really upgraded their roster. You know, they've run it back with mostly the same goal.

And then, you know, I think Brock Faber is a player that they've promoted and they're playing more now. He's really struggled on the PKK, actually. You know, they brought him Bogosian. But, like, I mean, was the expectation for the team that they were going to be better? Because I don't really see. I don't know. I don't necessarily better, but I think certainly not this poor, especially from a goal suppression perspective. I think that has been a bit surprising.

I mean, you're right. Like, a lot of the additions are recorded. quote, improvements they tried to make were on the margins. Now, when you're still paying about 15 million or so in dead cap to two guys who aren't even on the team anymore, that's clearly going to hamstring you or limit your flexibility for ways that you can actually improve the team. So there is that, but I don't know, it is still stunning to me to see that only the sharks, the oilers, who's, you know, in the sharks case, all of their deficiency in the oilers case, like, they're a goaltending and what a mess their defensive system has been. That's been

talked about quite a bit, right? But for whatever reason, this wild team, which is like right there with those teams, has flown under the radar a little bit in terms of just how bad they've been defensively, and they're right there in terms of goals allowed. So that's certainly an issue. I guess the other thing is, and I guess you wouldn't have noticed this when you were just keying in on the penalty kill, but Kirill Kaprizov certainly hasn't played up to his standard as well, right? And so when your best offensive player also isn't producing to help mitigate some of this defensive stuff, that's how you get this, this 5-8 and 4 record. Yeah, and I mean, speaking of Caprizov, like, you know, he hasn't been in the league that many

years, but he's starting to reach an age where, you know, that natural speed that he relies on so much is going to start to erode, right? You know, Zuccarello's already there. You know, Goodrose. I think he's, you know, in his late 20s or early 30s. But, like, right around that time, like, that's where we see. see players defensive impacts fall off because they're just not quite as quick at forcing 50-50s or winning those battles.

The thing that I see on the PK is, you know, structurally, I understand what they're trying to do, but the players end up doing each other's jobs because they don't really trust their teammate to be in the right spot. So what happens is the other team like on their power play entry, Minnesota is going to sag back. They're going to let the other team get the zone. But then once the other team set up, they begin sort of chasing the play and being more aggressive than they should because it's almost like they're trying to make up for the fact that they were so passive on the entry. So that kind of stuff happens when you're just half a step slow.

And also the confidence that you have in your teammates erodes when you know that they're going to be half a step slow. And that's mostly what I'm seeing. Like it's it's not a matter of making wholesale ethical changes per se, but just what can they do to. we gain that comfort level with each other on the kill. Like that's what I'm wondering. Yeah. I mean, Caprizo, I was looking at this, at 515 this year, he's got one goal and five points, which is the same amount as Dakota Mermis on his own team.

Now the Wilde are scoring with him on the ice, so they are creating it's not like it's been a total zero offensively. He's just not personally getting points at the same rate on those goals as he used to previously. and like he's got an 865 on ice save percentage when he's out there. So yeah, he's been certainly affected by some of these things that might be out of his control a little bit. But I think, you know, you mentioned sort of that speed and where he's at right now. I think he's also been like missing. I've noticed missing practices and stuff.

And I think they'd acknowledge that he's banged up. So I wouldn't be surprised at all if he's if he's not anywhere close to 100% and he's just sort of trying to play through this because obviously even him at limited is still so essential for this team. because if you take him out of this lineup, all of a sudden, their ability to be competitive is just completely evaporates, right? So I kind of get that that's a balance they're trying to strike. Okay. Intelligent Dice asks, please fix the penguin's power play. And this was specifically directed at you, Jack. Apparently, Intelligent Dice wanted no part of me trying to fix this power play. It was directly sent your way. They say, they have no identity. What tactics should they try to employ to maximize the personnel on this unit.

Now, I think the last time I had you on the show, you and I spoke quite a bit about the penguins, but it was more so a general conversation about them, and at the time they were losing a lot more than they were winning, they've kind of righted the ship a little bit in that regard, but the power play is still dragging quite a bit behind. So with the names involved, right, Crosby, Malkin, Gensel, Carlson, even LaTang,

who sometimes they sprinkle in on that top unit as they alternate the fifth guy, the names are there, the goals haven't resulted. Is it just a matter of low shooting percentage this will come around? Or do you think there's something sort of structurally or fundamentally wrong with their approach that's leading to these results? So, I mean, like the underlying stats are good, right? The rates. I mean, they're 15 shots in first and expected goals, right?

You'd look at that and you'd say, all right, this powerful is humming along. But then you actually watch the results or you listen to how Penguins fans talk. about it and then you'd think it's like the worst unit in the league. Yeah. So the underlying stats are good to great. So doing nothing is certainly a reasonable option, right? Like not that I necessarily expect them to do nothing, but doing nothing is certainly a reasonable option here. The thing that I looked at, which I found interesting, was I went on hockeyviz.com,

like a Blake McCurdy's site and he has a tool that actually shows you where each player takes their shots on the power play. So what we see with the penguins is that first of all their heat map is very warm near the net which is obviously a good thing

but it's especially warm on the right side of the ice and I think it makes a lot of sense because all their big forwards on that unit are lefty so whether it's Krosby, Malkin, Gensel you know like Brian Russ will be the only right-handed forward.

We would have spent any time with that unit this year, I believe. Or actually Raquel. So Russell Raquel, but I think, like, you know, that fourth player or fifth player is kind of in flux. But anyway, so their shot map, it skews right, which means that for a smart team, they cue in on that, right? Because they know that Krosby is looking for these backdoor tapins on the right side. They know that Malkin loves to hit his one timer from a little bit farther up, right?

And the one tweet that maybe I would make is, you know, would Malkin be comfortable playing the left flank and taking some shots from the left flank? Because if you imagine now we have Malkin coming downhill with the puck on the left, we got Carlson back at the point. That's a forehand to forehand pass. If ever nothing's open, like that's a very reasonable play to reset. We got Gensel maybe in that bumper spot who's on his one-timer side if Malkin's passing. We got Crosby who's alternating between the strong side goal line, net front, and the back door, which he loves. And that other player can be kind of on the right plank, maybe changing places with Crosby or Gensel or whatever, right? I don't know how comfortable Malkin is because historically he loves the bang one-timers from the right point.

and, you know, he scored a lot of goals that way. But I wonder, like, because that bit of real estate is somewhat underutilized right now from a shooting perspective. And maybe if the Penguins just, you know, they take a few shots from there, they force the PK to overload that's hot a little bit more. Maybe the backdoor plays open up because ultimately it is the backdoor plays are going to pay the bills for them. But maybe the teams are just sitting on sitting on a little bit too much right. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a good point. Like I said, they're fourth and shots and a person and expected goals.

they're shooting just 8% as a team and that's got them 25th in the league generating just about five goals per 60 now they were they were better in previous years certainly with a lot of the same pieces Carlson's clearly new but I think they were like still middle of the pack the past two years right I think they're 13th and 18th in those two seasons respectively so still not where you'd expect from the caliber of some of these names and superstar offensive talent I guess yeah my question is sort of the diversity of approach or what they're trying to accomplish because while when it works it looks beautiful and I think Malkins been awesome this year and Carlson's been really really good on this team as well but them sort of taking shots from the edges of the setup and those two guys

account for by far the most on the team where Malkin's got 43 shot attempts on the power away this here and then Carlson's got 31 and then everyone else is sort of in the mid to low 20s I believe Jake Gensel for example was probably their best most efficient shooter just because of where he is on the ice and their setup it's it's tougher to get in the puck I get that but he's got only 22 attempts by comparison and so what they're actually trying to accomplish with this and like where they're funneling the puck to in terms of like all right if you talk to the penguins right now at the start of a two minute power play where do you ideally want to get this puck and how are you planning on scoring. I do think there is something there where they probably are just going to

be better as a result of some sort of progression, right? Some of these puck's will start going in more, but it's still probably not good enough for the type of players they theoretically have. Like, it should be a more efficient operation as a whole than we've seen so far. Yeah. I mean, so I would, again, doing nothing is completely reasonable and there are going to be, I think they're going to be above average if they just kind of roll of the back and just kept doing this. But, you know, if we talk about like all the shorthanded goals that they've given up, there was one that comes to line where Carlson tries to pass them all two times in a row. And they, I think it was against Adaheim.

They get picked off. They get scored. Like that kind of paints a picture of like maybe we're abusing this Carlson to Balkan at the right point, pass a little bit too much. And again, like, you know, over the years, like we've seen how, first of all, how great of a player Malkin is, but also how stubborn you can be. But it seems like once again, solution would comes from massaging Malkins, you know, a mindset so that maybe he can make some adjustments and then the whole team could be better for it. Yeah, I agree with that. Okay, Jack,

we've got a bunch of other questions here, but before we get into Natham, I think this is a good place for us to take a quick break. And then when we come back, we'll keep chatting with you and answering our listener questions that we've got in the mailbag. You are listening to the Hockey Pee-O-cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the Hockey P-O-Cast, joined by Jack Hahn. We're doing a Friday mailbag, Jack. Let's keep the questions going. Let's keep the fun going.

RT2 asks. As a Canucks fan, we've had two coaches in a row now. We're quite committed to having defensemen playing their strong side. Considering the much larger number of left-handed defensemen available, could a scheme be adopted to playing left-handed defensemen on the right side to exploit a market inefficiency in the league, or is it an insurmountable defensive issue? So I think we've spoken about handedness in the past and sort of its value or its impact and players that are able to do it.

How do you feel about this, though, and whether there would be a scenario where you were able to potentially make it easier on those guys just so that you could actually go out and spend your resources on not only them being more available, but generally, I think, being more freely available and cheaper because we play such a premium on right shot defensemen who are good. It seems like we elevate them more than their left-handed counterparts just because of, I guess, supply and demand. Yeah, so this is something that I talked a lot about with my colleagues when I was in Toronto, especially the first couple of years when Justin Hall was perpetually eating popcorn in the press box.

Like, back then, you know, we had Haynesie play on his offside. I think Gardner play in his offside a little bit, but we had, you know, we only had basically Zytezv as a right D if memory serves. And the thing that I've always believed is, you know, obviously we know that there's about twice as many lefties playing pro hockey than righties. So if you're building a team that's kind of ideal or optimal from a talent point of you, then you probably should have four left-handed Ds and two right-handed Ds. So, you know, at least one left he's going to be playing on his offside.

So I think it's definitely something that you should be prepared for. and have a way more to, you know, try guys on their offside if they're lefty or at least, you know, give them some guidelines on what to do. So, so I'm definitely, you know, with whoever asked that question, I think that that's something we're thinking about. And one really neat example that we've seen this season is, you know, apologies to Kinnux Fan, but it's, oh, yeah. So, Nickman Larson got bought out last summer. He played on his strong side in Vancouver. and actually for most of his career before that as well. But with Montour and Ekblad out in Florida,

he's basically been an average top pair of defensemen playing his offside, which for a guy making close to league minimum is actually quite brilliant. So again, apologies for Canucks fans, but study. Yeah, I mean, he's certainly not the first player for the Panthers to go out and add that we had ridden off or had low expectations for, and then all of a sudden they seem to squeeze as much juice out of them as possible. I thought you were going to go with Sean Jersey. I was going to say a personal favorite of mine,

but I know you share the same affinity for a PDO cast favorite. Certainly, we try to squeeze him into the show whenever we can, but he actually goes the other way here, right, where he is a natural right-shot defenseman who played last year on the Kings on the left, on his offside, because they're one of the only teams in the league, essentially that has this unique advantage of an embarrassment of bridges with that right shot defense position. And so I think part of his struggles were in terms of the way he was having a play stylistically on that team, but also part of it, I think, was in terms of play that

offside, particularly when he was going back and retrieving the puck, I think he was forcing him. So it's always going to make mistakes. That's the type of player he is. But I think some of them were probably unnecessary just because of what he was being asked to do. And then now you look, he's playing his natural side on this Coyote's team. And not only is he putting up the goals and the points and the power play, but with him on the ice at 515, they're outscoring opponents 18-014. They've got a 51% expected goal share. And his usage is all the way up.

He's playing about two more minutes per game in 5-15 than he did previously on a deeper Kings team. And so they clearly identified him as a guy they could get just because of where L.A. was at. and they got him for rare cheap and plugged him in as a top pair defenseman for them, and he's played quite well. So I know it's kind of the opposite of what our listener is asking here, but similar concept in terms of why handedness might potentially impact a player on their results. Yeah, and Derzzi is a really great case study going the other way,

because I remember when he went to the Coyotes, Mike and Blake McCurdy in effective math, he tweeted out Dursey's, Viz on his site and he said Dersie's a weak 515 player and the thing that immediately jumped out to me was Dersie spent the whole season on his offside and the thing is as a lefty there is a fair chance that you would have

played on your offside growing up because most of your teammates are left handed and as one of the better players on the team maybe you get to play your offside but more but I'd be very surprised if Dersie spent any amount of time on his offside as a right-handed player because especially growing up in Canada, right-handed players are rare and he would have spent basically

his entire hockey career on the right and then all of a sudden being asked to change sides in the NHL level, which is really difficult. Yeah, very unique situation. I guess the player that does fit this example most prominently is Miro Hayskinnan, right, where he is a left shot who for years now

has been asked to play pretty much exclusively, on the right side for the stars, except for a brief stretch at the start of last year where they had Colin Miller playing on the top air with him, and that allowed him to bump to his natural side, and he'll look great doing so. Now, he's just, he's such a prolific player and so good at everything, essentially, that he can make it work. And I get that because they have all of these inferior options who can't do so, he kind of accommodates them and just bumps to his offside, and they make it work regardless. But it is a bit frustrating to see them keep asking him to do that where I'd just love to see Miro playing full time for an extended stretch

on his strong side and to see what that would look like and whether it would yield different results because I think that would be an interesting case study. Oh, yeah, yeah, but again, it depends who his partner is, right? And because a lot of your weeds, they change depending on the side that you're on. So if you go back to Eckle Larson for a second, the two reasons why I think he's been really good in this. first of all, you know, he's not the best skater, but he's a really good shooter. Like if you look at just his box cars over the years, like he's consistently scoring, you know, double digits and goals. And even if you look at kind of like his model, whatever, like he's a plus shooter relative to others in his position. So the fact that he's on his offside, the one timer is always open. He's getting a better angle to the net on his wrist shots as well. You know, he's been. You know, he's been. shooting the puck a lot more and that's really been good for his confidence. And also

last year I remember watching him with Vancouver and he struggled a lot defending the rush skating backwards but now that is on his offside he almost has no choice but to use that forward motion more to surf more and that's actually out of them as well

because actually like you know the worst skater you are technically the better off you are skate. Okay. Let's go to the next question here from nonsense lasagna asks we've seen a lot of box plus one adoption across the NHL this season when a coach changes a system like that do they consciously simplify pieces of it early on and introduce new wrinkles to it as the team shows it's actually grasping at versus

NHL teams during games or are they showing them the ideal look right away and then correcting issues as they arise we hear a lot about teams adjusting to new systems in early parts of the season to explain when they're struggling. And I was wondering if that's a result of the way concepts are being implemented. Now, there's, there's certainly a lot going on here. I know you and I have spoken quite a bit in the past on this show about the Oilers and how some of the misconceptions, at the same time, you do watch them play, and it's a different coach now, but there's just so many, so many breakdowns on their net, which in theory, in an ideal world, if they actually are playing that way, should be completely eradicated. But instead, they're popping up more and more.

that's a specific example of this. I think we can take an even bigger picture of you of it and not necessarily limited to just that one example, but sort of this idea of you've got a set roster or a type of personnel that's already been in place and then whether it's a new coach or whether it's a new strategy that you try to implement over a new season in the off season, how does that sort of work? What does that process look like? And what, in your opinion, is the best way of rolling that out to get the best results, especially in the short term where you might not be able to afford like a long losing streak

where you're ironing out all the bugs. So I think different coaches do it differently. Like the past few teams I've worked with, I've been more of the mind that we should just go as sort of general ideas or general principles and see how the players understand it first and then make adjustments as we go. So for example, you know, with the Connecticut Whale of the PHF, you know, one of the first things we did was we went to more of a two, three ozone where we had the third forward coming up and then attacking downhill. So the cue for the players was just, you know, roll up above the circles and then

see what you have. And then whatever you do, whether it's a pass or a shot, you're attacking toward the net as opposed to try to force the puck, you know, into the slot and, you know, toward our net. So that that's actually a really simple thing that players, I think, were able to grasp right away. And then the nuances of it were able to iron out throughout the sea. season. And then recently I was exposed to another coach teaching essentially the same ozone system, but the way that they were doing it was a lot more, I would say, rigid where it's like, okay, well, we want our defensemen to go when this happens. Or like there's just a lot more decision rules, which, you know, personally, like I don't love just because when you play in

the ozone, things happen quickly. And you can't always, you, you can't always, you, thinking about like, okay, well, I'm going to do this if she does that or he does that. So I'd rather go on the simple end. And the way that I would explain it to you, Dimitri, is let's say we're standing together in a room, right? And I call you, hey, Dimitri, can you move like two feet to your left, which obviously is like the simplest thing up, right? So you move two feet to your left. But this very simple instruction, it gets more complicated if you're juggling, right? Like you're trying to keep three balls in the air and it's like, Dimitri, move to your left.

And you're like, well, I'm trying. I'm trying. And then it's like you're juggling, but then there's a bear chasing. I'm like, Dimitri, move to your left. It's like, oh, like the bear is to my left. Like, he's going to eat. But that's what it's like when you're a player trying to implement a change where, you know, certain situations is quite easy.

Like, let's say you change your neutral zone forecheck while you're just standing in a different place waiting for your opponent to approach you. So that's a very easy. change. Maybe some sort of a de-zone change is also very easy. Where let's say if you're the winger, instead of cutting off the pass to the point, you know, quote unquote, cutting off the top, now you're protecting the dot light. So you're just standing five to ten feet closer to the middle of the slot. That's a fairly easy change, right?

Anything with the puck is a little bit more difficult because now you're thinking about, okay, like, I don't want to lose the puck. I want to see where the pressure is coming from. I don't see where my teammates are. you know, if your coach tells you, okay, well, let's enter through the middle of the ice. Well, that's more complicated because you've got to enter through the middle, but also you've got to not lose the puck and you have to be mindful of what the next play is. And then executing this under pressure or when the momentum of the game is against you, you've been out there for a while. That's like

trying to juggle with a bear chasing you. That's really difficult. And that's where you see a lot of breakdowns happen, even from NHL players, because they're tired, they're overwhelmed. And also they're trying to problem solve something that they're not familiar with. Yeah. No, I think that's a great point. I think how all of this, this sort of trickle down effect or an accumulation over the course of a game where I think there's, there's some examples certainly where you can isolate it to just one decision making process that a player made and go, all right, that was either very good or very bad. But for the most part, a lot of it is kind of expectation of what, if you're a defenseman, for example, what your partner is going to do if X, Y, and C happens, where they're going to go.

and then your confidence in that they're actually going to do it, similarly for forwards and the foreshack and things like that, and especially with the F3 kind of knowing that they're going to be back there and supporting you and making the right reads. And so, I don't know, this Oilers team, I said that as an example. They're in an entirely different stratosphere right now in this regard. Like you watch that game against the hurricanes, and there's the one play where it's like, I have no idea what route

or what Cody Cici is even trying to accomplish in his own zone. There's the Marty Natchez goal where essentially four Oilers players are just watching him as he's banging away at a rebound of brother of goalie and finally scores. I mean, there's just so many breakdowns and so many poor decisions being made. It seems like a bunch of players who don't necessarily really know what they're supposed to be doing. And I think that's also just been an accumulation of kind of being just absolutely beaten down

these past couple weeks by all these results. and just how catastrophic this year has been for them. So there's a lot to parse there, but I think that's certainly a big part of what's going on. Yeah, and you really can't underestimate what, you know, having like a streak of super low PDO or super low save percentage can do for you.

Like I remember one year, I was working with the Marley's and we were like, we pull months, we just could not get a save. Like we were getting the same kind of goal tending early in that, 2018-19 season that the Oilers are getting now and it was like it seems like everything was going in like I think two games in a row we got scored on the first shot of the game or there was like a clearing attempt that went off the back wall off our goalie's foot and then in the net it was like

you feel like the world is is just like falling on top of you and you're completely hexed and like you can't take straight anymore so like I at least sympathize with oilers players and staff Well, and there's also, I think, a key distinction where, you know, when you talk PDO, right, it's a combination of shooting and save percentage. And I think offensively, certainly if you're going through a rut where you've gone a handful of games without scoring and you're expected to score every time you play, there's going to be a certain amount of pressure on you. And, you know, we're all familiar with the concept that may be gripping the stick a bit too tight and that allowing that to seep into your game. But you also hear players talk all the time about as long as you are actually getting opportunities. and getting chances and the puck's coming to you and you're in the right spot and you're getting your looks off. It can be frustrating if you're not turning them into goals, but you still feel like,

all right, I'm playing the right way and things will eventually, if I continue this, I'll start scoring, right? It's going to change. Tide's going to turn. Whereas I think defensively, if you have no confidence in your goalie behind you or the puck is just going in every time you you make one little simple mistake or even you don't and the puck still goes in, I think that's going to have some sort of major impact. on your future decisions and the way you play, right? Even if it wasn't your fault or even if it, you know, rationally, it shouldn't. But that's just kind of, that's human nature. I think there's a human element to game certainly. And I think that's part of it. And so I think that's, when you talk

PDO, I think on the two ends of the ice, maybe, I think it's easier to justify process on one and under the other. I think there can be kind of a different calculus involved. Yeah, because if, you know, if you're missing scoring chances, at least there's a sort of aligning in the sense that you're doing good things. Whereas if you're simply just, you know, coming back to your D zone, you're in your spot, your man's covered, and then all of a sudden the puck's in your net, you're like, like, what the heck do I have to do here? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. Okay. Next question. It might be our last one. We'll see if we can squeeze in a few more, but JR Jersey asks, Devils haven't been as good this season at 5-1-5. Is there any major difference that Jack sees to

the way they're playing, especially from their defensemen? And I imagine the reason brings that up is not only because they're giving up more goals and the goalies have struggled. And, you know, I think their most recent game, they lose five nothing to the Detroit Red Wings, but also because that's where the most changes have been made, right? They brought in Tyler DeFoli and Hishir and Hughes have missed time. But for the most part, the forwards are relatively the same, where we saw Damon Severs and Ryan Graveslee, even, and they're incorporating different players in the back end now.

So that's kind of an easier change from a personnel perspective to trace on this roster. Where are we at with the Devils and how do we sort of talk about this? Because on the one hand, there's clearly so much talent in place. And I think there's still a lot of good stuff happening where you don't necessarily want to panic and act like, okay, this is, you know, this season's going south quickly. But at the same time, these results that they're getting are very uncharacteristic to what they got last year. And I think what our expectations were for them heading into the season. I think they're going to be fine. I mean, like if you look at Colorado, in the past three years, there has been stretches where Colorado's had trouble really dominating

play and, you know, because of injuries or just because, you know, the players are jelling as well, but and, and they're fine now, right? And the thing is, when your, when your game is so much based on having the puck and playing off the rush and getting these sort of quick strike chances, if the other team plays you defensively correctly, you shouldn't be getting them, right? And if your execution is not top-notch, then you can go cold for a little bit and your offensive stats can tank. And because you don't have the puck now, you're playing more defense and then your defensive stats are also tanking.

These are just things that happen if your team that tries to play with possession. If you're not on your game, you know, it can be a little bit fiddick. Certainly. And I think some of the numbers that I see, you know, you watch them play and that the numbers kind of back this up. I'm looking at their data from Sport Logic this season. And offensively, they are still creating a very high volume of everything you want to see, right? All those chances, you mention everything in the attacking zone.

It all looks good. It's all in that top five range. It's elite, and we should expect them to score significantly more five-on-five goals. One change that they had made last year as a team to previous versions of them that I think was a big reason why they took such a step as a team was that ability to sustain some of these. offensive zone sequences where, all right, you're a fast young team, you got a lot of skill, you're trying to attack off the rush and score that way quickly. But then if that doesn't work out, are you all of a sudden having an out backtrack and defend in transition, or are you able to recover the puck, keep the puck in the offensive zone and build on that and then have an ensuing

successful shift? And their offensive zone possession time in terms of keeping the puck in there after these sequences has dropped off quite a bit this season where I believe they're like a bottom 10 team in that regard. So that's one concern. And then maybe that's partly why they're giving up so many more high danger chances and inner slot shots as well where that's regressed quite a bit. So I think those two things might be kind of correlated or tied together, but that's where I would look at in terms of areas they significantly need to improve if they want to get back to where they were last year because that's really the only real weakness other than Like, yeah, you know, they have an 890s percentage or whatever.

Their goalies haven't been as good, but I think we need to look at why that's happening. Yeah. I mean, if they do a better job of managing the puck in the ozone and surviving that first shot against off the rush, they're going to be fine. And it's the kind of that an NHL coaching staff is good at identifying and fixing overtime. So I'm really not worried about the devils. Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, there's a lot there. And I think, especially as they just get healthier, they're going to iron this out and get back on track.

the fact that they've braved this start of the season as well they have. I think it should be encouraging. I mean, they have a 39% 5-15 goals here right now, which is only better than the San Jose sharks. And they're giving up 5-15 goals of the fifth highest rate. And part of that is goal-tending. But I think part of it is stuff that they can sort of address and look at and iron out. So I want to see that from them moving forward. Okay, Jack, we got a few other questions, but we're running out of time here. I mean, I guess we can quickly squeeze this one end from Taylor just because I wanted to pick your mind about it. I thought it was interesting. Before we get out of here, Taylor asked, what are some of the guidelines for composing a good

forward lineup in today's NHL? Are there different strategies that we know to be more or less effective? For example, is it better to load up two lines or spread talent throughout the lineup? Is it better to have some lines that are more offensively oriented versus defense first? Just in terms of all things being equal, let's say you just have league average personnel. You're not either good or bad specifically. How are you trying to kind of construct that group? but are you looking for specific strengths and tendencies that are worked together with each other? Or is there specific stuff that you're wanting, like a checklist, you're wanting to make sure you have throughout your four forward lines? That's a really, that's a really broad question.

But I'll give you a bit of like an esoteric answer. But there is a former Swedish hockey player. Unfortunately, I don't remember who is. It might have been Ulf, Ulf Nielsen. Anyway, but he said that the way that you give a pass should be like the way that you give a handshake to an old friend. And for a line to work, you need some players who can play off the pass and play off the pass with each other. So regardless of the individual skill set, like that's essentially what you want is you want three forwards who are comfortable getting the puck to each other and getting open to receive a puck. So whether they're big, they're small, they're slow, they're quick, they're shooting.

shooters, their passers, they're tough or not, you just need three guys complete some passes together. Right. Now, those players haven't. I imagine there's going to be a feeling out process regardless. Sometimes players are just so good and work so well together that it just seamless. And right away, you're like, all right, this works. I think other times it probably will work if you give it enough time, but if the results aren't there, maybe you'll be kind of, you'll put the lines of black in a blender and mix them up all over again. Are you, if it's not working right out of the game, what you feel like it should? Are you going to be more lenient to give a time to kind of play itself out a little bit? Or are you just, you're giving them a chance if it's not working, you're trying

something different? And again, you know, talking about playing off the pass. Well, every player has areas on the ice that they're comfortable getting the pass. And this is something that I know Darrell talks about quite a bit. So if you have three guys together who are complimentary in that sense, so let's say, you know, one guy is really good at digging pucks out of the corner. Another guy is really comfortable getting pucks in the high slot and shooting, the other guy is really good off the rush. There's ways to make it work, right? So if you think, well, okay, these three guys, like, their natural tendencies mesh really

well, but the experiment hasn't been conclusive so far. Maybe you want to give it a little bit more time. Yeah. Okay. We are out of time for today's show, Jack. We didn't get to do our reconvening about the National Predators, even though I know we know we wanted to a team. that I'm striving to cover with you every time we have you on this season.

But maybe we'll have to save them for next year because we kind of, we earmarked it last time we spoke and things have changed in some ways. They're sticking at others, but maybe we'll have to save that for next time we chat. Yeah, let's see if there are any good in a few more. I've been sending you, whenever they play well, I've been sending you some cheeky remarks when they don't, I conveniently ignore it. So we'll see how that goes to their next. couple weeks. All right, I'll let you plug some stuff here on the way out. Let the listeners know

what you're working on, where they can check you out, all that good stuff. Okay, so it's Black Friday, and a lot of people want you to spend money by offering you rebates. I'm actually here to offer you something for free. So if you go on J-H-A-N-H-N-H-K-Y dot gumroad.com, if one of my e-books, I'm actually offering for free for the first 25 people to use the code P-E-O-Cast. Oh, look at that. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, free stuff.

So that, that ebook is hockey tactics retrospective. So it's a breakdown of all the great teams from the 70s and 80s. A lot of retro, very niche things fully illustrated. You're going to love it. Again, three for the first 25 listeners who use code PDOCAST at checkout. All right.

Well, I love that. Thank you for doing that for our listeners. If you're listening to this and you want to go check that out, go quickly do so before. 25 other people do it and that offer expires. Jack, thank you for taking the time and coming on while you're battling that cold. We hope if you feel better and we'll certainly have you back on shortly. Thank you to the listeners for listening to us. If you want to get involved, like I said, at the top of the show with future mailbags on Fridays, just join the Discord. The Invite link is in

the show notes and send those questions along and we'll definitely get to them. And we'll be back shortly with more of the Hockey P.Ocast here on the Sports Night Radio Network.