The Hockey PDOcast - Making the Sabres Fun Again, where the power resides in the NHL, and Most Improved Players

Episode Date: November 25, 2023

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by John Matisz to help answer some mailbag questions about why the Sabres haven't been quite as fun this season, how the Bruins keep winning games, where the power resides in the league, and the idea of a Most Improved Player award in the NHL.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/a2QGRpJc84The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedocast. My name is Demetri Philipovich and joining me is my good buddy John Mattis. John, what's going on, man? Hey, what's happening? It's been a while. What's going on, Dimitri? It's good.

It's good to have you back on your, uh, I was during the Jack Hahn episode, we just did. I was talking about how I'm in Seattle, uh, or Canucks Crackin and other sporting activities over the weekend. And you are fresh off a trip of your own. to Buffalo to watch the Buffalo Sabres play the Pittsburgh Penguins. And this is the good stuff. I love having you on. Foods on the ground reporting are going to be talking about what's going on behind the scenes, the sense you're getting from talking to people around the team, all that good stuff.

This is what it's all about. But it's good to have you back on. And we're going to get into the listener questions here. We've got some fun mailbag questions. The listeners of this show always deliver, always with fun outside the box, thought-provoking ideas. So we're going to see how far we can get with it and have some fun with it. Well, we're on the topic of the Sabres. We got a question about them, and I think that's a good segue into getting into this conversation

because it's on top of mind, and you were just there, as I said. And so Kobe asks, what's up with the Sabres? This was the season they were going to fight for a playoff spot, and sure they won some games, but it feels like they haven't been doing it in a very convincing way, however. What do the numbers suggest? Are they struggling as much as it seems? And what should they do to change that? So you were there, that was probably one of their more encouraging performances,

especially the way it ended, right? It felt like that really could have not gone off the rails because it's not like they were getting blown out. But if they lifelessly lose that game, let's say, you know, they're down to nothing. They get shut out. I think the tone of this conversation might be a little bit different, right? Because it's like, oh, man, they just can't, they can't score what's going on. They come back, they score three goals.

They win it late in dramatic fashion. And so it's more encouraging. certainly, but I do still think that if you take a step back and look at it as a season from a whole, it's probably not what we all anticipated from them heading into the season, right? Yeah, and I wonder if us collectively as hockey observers maybe overestimated them as far as what they did last year offensively was pretty incredible. I think they finished third and goals or some definitely in the top five. And so you, you know, for us to assume that that would be replicated was maybe a little naive. Not that they don't have the personnel to do it,

but they were, they didn't deal with a ton of injuries last year. Now they are. Most notably, Tage Thompson has been out. Jack Quinn has been out the entire season. And it sounds kind of crazy because at this point in his career, Jack Quinn is, I don't know, a top nine winger, top six at best. Like he's not this complete stud, but you can really feel his absence in terms of the winger depth. And, you know, Dylan Cousins has, you know, been dealing with something. Alex Tug started the season not looking like himself and presumably dealing with something. So there's that part of the equation where, you know, we all get excited about some teams and we don't realize that, hey, like that one year that when they started to take off, everything seemed to go right for them. So I think there's that.

And then I think something that, again, maybe we didn't account for as a community was, They're older guys like Kyle Okpozo, and I know he's coming off his first goal of this season and played fairly well last night against the penguins, but he's really slowing down. And he's their captain. Sure, maybe they could held these scratch from down the line, but like he's kind of, you know, a permanent fixture on the on the fourth line. Gergensen's also in the fourth line, also an old veteran. You know, he's good defensively. He's not going to hurt you, but he's not certainly contributing much offensively and is kind of on the back nine too. So there's that with the forward group.

And then I just feel like there was some sort of disconnect here in between the fun team that we saw last year and the vibes. The vibes were immaculate. And they were such a fun rush team. And then obviously Don Granato and Kevin Adams, they want to take that next step. They don't want to be stuck in this spot where they're just a vibes team, just a team that has low expectations. So in order to take that next step, you've got to start playing better defense. And I think they tried to do that to start the season. And it kind of backfired as far as maybe the team overcompensating

and not playing with instinct and that turning into what we saw and what we've been seeing is just not the sabres that we've grown to know and love. And interestingly enough, last night, the first two periods, it kind of looked like the same old sabers of this season. And then in the second intermission, Kyle Okpozo, you know, it's kind of one of those like movie moments, right? He gets up and he's, he's given a speech to his teammates. And he says, we need to attack.

Like we need to go, go, go. We need to play on instinct. Stop worrying about giving up chances again. Start playing downhill. And it materialized pretty obviously in the third period. They score three straight. And, you know, Tuck gets multiple breakaways. The goals they score were very much,

aligned with what last year's team did. So it could be a turning point, it could be nothing. But last night was quite interesting as far as the players, whether as Kyle Wachoso or Augstuck after the game, really talking about how the third period is how they should play and that there's been something going on with the team to start the season as far as not necessarily being on the same page, not necessarily playing to their potential

playing to their appropriate style. Because as much as, you know, Granato and Adams, and obviously the players want to take that next step and, you know, become better defensively, become more well-rounded as a team, I feel like the way that they're built now, as far as their personalities, is certainly more suited for an offensively focused team.

So, yeah, and I just looked at the rush chances that they've generated this year. Going into last night's game, they were at 6.6 chances generated off. the rush per game. Last year they were at 7.1. I think that's kind of the key stat to describe the start of their season. It's just they're not, it's not like they're poor defensively. It's not like they've completely lost their way, but they've kind of lost that bold approach like Okpozo was saying during the intermission, the attack mentality. Yeah, I wonder how much of it

is personnel driven and how much of it is like a flaw in the design in terms of the approach and what they're trying to accomplish building off of last year, right? Because you look, and I think of 9, 9 and 2, even after last night's win, minus 6 in goal differential for the season. You mentioned they were third or something in goals last year. They're 24th in goal scoring rate as a team this season. And so I think on the one hand, our pal Thomas Transon, I spoke about this when I had him on the show earlier this week. We were kind of this theory of sometimes we just assume that not only from an individual level but from a team level, there's going to be this linear stepwise improvement from year to year where it's like,

right, you did this this one season, and if you profile as a young, exciting team, you take this natural step to following year, when sometimes it's not like that, right? You may take a step back or you might stagnate, but if you keep accumulating enough talent, once it all it comes together and pops, you're going to surprise us and it's going to be like, all right, you went from not being a playoff team to all of a sudden being really, really good and not just, like, competitive, right? And so that's one thing. On the other hand, if you look at it, part of it is not having Jack Quinn, Tage Thomas has missed a bunch of time now as well, right? But for the most part, I think it's pretty encouraging what the young players are doing.

I know the expectations are incredibly high for both Owen Powell and Ross Vistali, and they already were, then they signed the big extensions. But especially with the young forwards, like you look at what like a Paterka is doing, for example, I think all of that is good. If anything, and I'm glad you brought this up, it's kind of an uncomfortable conversation for them to have. But the people bringing them down are the people that, were kind of brought in or kept on this team to provide stability or consistency, right? It's like, you look at Eric Johnson's numbers and everyone he plays with, it just drags

their performance down. Kyle Lik Pozo's line, I know that line isn't brought out there to score off the rush and be this juggernaut offensively, but when that line's out there, they're generating like a goal per hour or something with them, right? Like, nothing is happening. And they're coming out ahead in those minutes, actually funny enough, but it just totally goes counter to what this team should be and what they should be playing like collectively, right? And so you put that together and then compare it with a backdrop of you've got Yuri

Kulich putting up these like historic numbers in the AHA where he's up to 11 goals in 16 games this year for his career, including last year in the playoffs, 42 goals in 90 HL games as a teenager. Like that's sort of presented as this charming stat, right? It's like, wow, look at what he's doing. see that, I'm like, why has he played 16 games in the AHL this year? Like, he should be on this team. Yeah. This is a skill set, which they've been lacking this season. Like, they need that. It sounds like, I think they called up Isaac Rose and now after last night's game, similar thing. Like, these are players that, for whatever reason we say,

all right, you have like a bunch of young talent, you have high skill forwards, you need to balance it out. You can't just have a full team of them. But it's not like this team is performing the way they were last year where it's like, all right, we're scoring so many goals, but can we defend? If anything, the offense has fundamentally changed. Like, it's not just the goal scoring. You mentioned fewer chances off the rush. They're not getting to the high danger areas nearly as often. Their shot rate has come down. Like the 515 profile, and we get into the power play a little bit here too, has all changed. Like, it doesn't resemble what it did last year. So this isn't a matter of, all right, we need to adjust to the same things that were happening last

year. It's actually a fundamentally totally different problem, right? And so I don't know if that encouraging or not because on the one hand you'd think that there's enough firepower here for it to turn around but the way they've played for large stretches this season just does not resemble what I want to see from this team. Yeah, it's it's kind of takes you in two different directions where on one hand, as you mentioned, you know, some of these players like the Turk has taken a nice step, Casey Middlestad is like really solidified himself. He's been their best player this season. Yeah, he's been incredible. I think he's really built some strength and that's help him with with puck protection because he's always been slippery.

Zach Benson, obviously, a revelation. Payton Krebs is we're talking. He's on the Mikey Samant doll stars of just for existing everyone else in the team wants to rip his head off. Yeah, Tuck had a pretty good quote after the game about how he's already gone after Crosby, already gone after LaTang and maybe Malkin's next on Krebs's list in terms of the pens that he's going to agitate. Yeah, and like say with Koolich, I think the internal thinking is that they already have

Victor Oliveson up who is a similar type player. So it goes in line with what you're saying Demetri, where they're trying to really thread a needle here when maybe they're overthinking it. Maybe it should be let's put the best players in our lineup and just let the horses run. Because I'm generally like really high in this team moving forward. You know, I think, you know, they can still make the playoffs this year. It's not like it's a lost season by any means. And I just think that their core is nice and young and strong. They're still very young. team. But I wonder if the puzzle pieces are fitting if the, if, if the lineup is optimized at this point. And like I said off the top, I mean, injuries as I haven't helped, especially when you,

you compare it to last year when things went quite well on the injury front. So. But that should that, that, that, that you think that would emboldened them to, to call some of these guys. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The opportunity has opened. It's there. Right. It's not like it was maybe last year. I don't know. Hearing you, you, you, uh, reference having Victor Olives said. It's. It's like Sabers fans are asking Kevin Adams if they can have a Yuri Coolidge and Kevin Adams is like, no, we already have one at home. And it's Victor Olson. And it's not the same thing.

It's not apples to apples, but maybe in his eye it is. No, I know. Here's the thing. The power play as well, I kind of cited that. I know they scored the goal. I actually, funny enough, Skinner scored it. It's like a big point of contention for a lot of Sabers fans that I follow on Twitter and rightly so that he gets featured. very heavily in like prominent roles where the puck is flowing through him and decisions are being

made on the power play. And he's obviously a very productive offensive player, has had a hell of a career and is really good and skilled. But unfortunately, those skills do not seem to translate to the power play and they never really have in his career. I know they scored quite a few goals with him on the ice last year in the power play, but you look, and I pull this up for his career, he's played 2,500 minutes now with the man advantage. And he's been, it's crazy to think that Jiff's has been in the league for, yeah, long now. In that time, his teams have scored 6.5 goals per hour, which would rank as, like, very suboptimal, right?

Like, you want to get into that 8-9 range at least if you're going to be, like, considered really efficient. And so that's not nearly good enough. And then you look now, it's like, all right, they're scoring five goals per hour on a power play this year, which is 25th. They were much better at that last year. And so not having Tage Thompson there as a trigger man. And sometimes even when he was there early in the season, it was like they were just kind of trying to call that one play all the time because it looks so cool when it works.

And we know that like I talk with Belfrey on our Kutrov episode that you have to be able to throw different looks at opposing penalty kills to keep them honest and keep some of those windows open. But I think there's some adjustments there. Like I wouldn't panic about it. At the same time, it's obviously disappointing. And I think when you've gone, what, since 2011 or so now, since they made the play? I understand why you don't really get the benefit of the doubt when you get sold as kind of bill of goods heading into the season like, this is the year. I finally take the step.

Last year was fun and this year is going to be awesome. And you don't get that out of the gate. It can be discouraging. But I do think there's like the personnel is there to make these adjustments and hopefully they make some of them before this season goes off the rails again the way it has for too many seasons in a row now. Yeah, they have the longest streak in history, play up to out. Yeah, that's not the NHL. It's not good. And on the Skinner point, yeah, I find that he's, you make a good point. I think he's way better five on five because he can dance in the offensive zone. He's kind of like a guy that doesn't really

drive a line, but is certainly a really good complimentary player, which is why he works so well with Tuck, who's kind of the speed demon and then Tage is the creator, the connector there. So I, the power play certainly shouldn't be going through Skinner. He's should get his touches, he should be contributing, but it should go through Dalleen or power or I don't think, I don't think Tuck, but, and then obviously when Tage is around, but they got the personnel. That's obviously the bright side to all this, is that their power play should be good. I mean, yeah, and that's obviously, you know, that sounds great, but at this point, you do want the results. It's weird, because I, like I said at the top, I don't really know

how much of it. I think sometimes the execution's just been off. Like the players have not laid up to their capability at times. Like especially during the season you watch and they like for large stretches cannot string together any passes. And it's like this shouldn't be the case. I don't know. I'm pretty sure the coach isn't telling him to do that. But at the same time then you you look now almost like 20 games into the season and their profile in terms of how they're playing and what they're trying to generate has changed from last year in a negative way. And so that is concerning to me. And especially in light of our conversations last year where it's like, this is fun. They're scoring a lot. But to actually be considered a legitimate threat in a

playoff team, you need to tighten it up and make life easier for your goalies. And then sometimes I think that can kind of get in your head and you can almost overcompensate. And that's my fear that that's kind of what's happening here. And it seems like it sounds like at least that you agree with that. A hundred percent. And I think the team does, to be honest, based on the conversations in the dressing room after the game last night against the Penguins that come back win. And just to circle back on the way that this conversation started with me talking about expectations coming into the season

versus what we've seen through 20 games, Devin Levi, we, you know, it's kind of crazy in hindsight that we all thought, okay, Devin Levi is just going to take this thing and run. And he could still do it to end the season. And I don't think he's played like terribly or anything. but he certainly hasn't blown the doors off like he did when he came out of college last year. So I think us just going, you know, again, collectively as a hockey community going, oh yeah, Levi's got this.

Like they're fine in net. I think that's, that was maybe a little naive on our part, especially when, you know, Comrie and Ukapekalukinen were his contemporaries and, you know, peculukinen. Well, he's been awesome this year. Yeah, I was going to say he's, he's come on, but it's not like he's been given the net, right? Like it's still this shared role and they still have three goalies and there's not one that you really

like could just throw out there and a hundred percent knows can take the ball and run with it. But maybe they'll get there. Like you know, I think that's one area where maybe you check back at the 40 game mark and go what's going on with the goaltending or okay they got it right with this

three man system of these largely unproven guys. But again, looking into the season it's like you just check, you just checked off the goal tending because Levi is such a stud and we have such high hopes for him. But you never know, right? Things don't necessarily always work out the way that you, you hope. And as you mentioned off the top, like, things aren't always linear with teams, with players, and teams and players can figure it out over a long stretch. And I just think that the savers are still working their

way through it. No, I mean, UPL's been awesome. He was like plus 3.2 goals. So I would say, what we're expected in nine games heading into last nice game. I, I, another one in the column of never assume about goaltending, right? Because I spoke with Kevin Woodley a bunch last year. We both thought that he was the worst of the three. I know Connery's numbers were bad, but by a lot of adjustments, when you looked at the context and applied that to it, he had actually performed more admirably than UPL. And I was kind of confused why they were carrying three goalies just because of the fear of losing them, right? And now he sort of rewarded them for that. So kudos to him for bouncing back, but certainly not what I expected heading into the season. Okay. Yeah, and just,

being in the building last night, and it was like a full house, pretty rare for the Sabres these days. Awesome crowd. They obviously have tremendous fans. I love the Lou, the Lou for Lucan. Just to replace Luongo. Like there's a nice porch or passing of the torch there. And the Sabres fan have picked up that chant.

Okay. Let's do one more before we take a break here as we did 20 minutes on the Buffalo Sabres there. But I think there's a lot going on there. And I haven't spoken about them nearly as much as I've wanted to this evening. just because of those results. So I'm glad we got some time on them. Okay, Ace asks, we'd love some more information on how the Bruins have sustained this much success this far into the year. Is it the simple fact they have two elite goalies and two number one defensemen? Does it speak to position value? I think this is actually maybe an even more interesting part of this question.

Ace says, because I've always valued it as centers number one, then defensemen, then goalies, and then wingers last is the most replaceable. But the Bruins forward group seems to be built on strong wingplay with two of their most, their two best forwards being obviously David Pasternak and Brad Marchand as wingers. There's a lot of stuff there, certainly with the Bruins and also with this idea of roster construction,

who's driving the bus and who moves the needle and all that. But let's talk a little bit about the Bruins here before we go to break. Yeah, I mean, the first thing that jumps off the page for me is that they've continued to play, I'll call it winning hockey. You know, they pack the slot with a ton of shots on offense, and then they pack the slot with bodies on defense. So, you know, the math is pretty easy there. If you're getting high quality shots as an offensive team

and limiting the shots defensively, that's going to turn into a lot of wins. And I feel like Don Swaney, the GM, has hired some very good coaches. I mean, you had Bruce Cassidy and then he hands it over to Jim Montgomery. I find that when I watch the Bruins, I see just, you know, we love to talk about structure and systems. Like I just see a lot of simplicity in how they play, and every player is disciplined in how they are positioned on the ice. And also their special teams are really good.

I mean, first penalty kill, 12th ranked power play. They are probably the best Puck support team in the league. again, both on offense and defense, and how much of that is the Patrice Bergeron effect of previous years where he just rubs off on everyone around him because that was his red and buttered, just always being there for his teammates. And the last thing would be you can't discount the advantage of having two starters. I mean, every night they're throwing out a, let's be conservative here, top 15 goalie in Swayman and Allmark.

You could argue both of them are in the top 10. So if you're the opposition, you're never getting a night off. You're never getting a backup where you go, okay, this is point night or okay, this is the night we can really take advantage of the Bruins. They just, they're just, they just keep throwing them out. They got this nice rotation and they obviously, you know, as it's, it's been well told, well documented that Swayman and Allmark are best friends and they really cheer for each other. It's just this perfect goalie duo. So that makes with the fact that they have their first in goal differential and the first. period plus 11, you know, if you always have the lead to start the game and you play a certain

way, I think the losses of Bergeron and Kreichy become less significant. That's a really good point. What's interesting to me in looking at their profile and the way they play is there seems to be quite a gap between you look at the shot chart, for example, on hockey biz with Michael's site, and it's what you'd expect, right? Like, there's a lot of blue defensively in their own zone in the middle of the ice. They essentially clear out between the circles and in front of the net. And you'd think, all right, that's Bruins hockey, right?

For all those years, and they're patrice Berserod, that's a no-fly zone. He's patrolling that. And they keep everything to the outside. And that's why their goalies are always so good because they make life easy for them with what they're facing, right? On the other hand, they're by private models, they're giving up a lot of inner slot shots. They're like bottom five or six in the league in terms of most given up. And their goalies, all mark and swayman heading into last night's game, and I'm sure the numbers came down a little bit after they gave up a few against the Red Wings.

But they'd given up 38 goals combined this season on 57 expected goals against worth of offense, which is obviously ridiculous, right? It essentially has like the first and second best goalie in the league. And so there's something, there's a gap there. And I think that makes sense that they're not as good defensively as they were when Patrice Berger-Arv was there. I think that that checks out to me. That intuitively makes sense.

The structure and the fundamentals and the foundation that they've built all these years is still there, but it's just going to be a bit of a difference. And I think the goaltending has covered that up because every single night, they're never having to pinch their nose and use their backup and be like, all right, well, we might lose this game, but we got to rest our goalie because he can't play every night. In this case, they're always playing. top 10 goalie. And so that's a huge advantage for them, along with the number one penalty kill, great special teams, and obviously star players up front at both positions. But I don't know,

I don't think they're necessarily as good as they were defensively previously, but it just hasn't mattered yet. I do think the schedule has also been pretty favorable for them so far, right? They started off the year, as we noted, early in the season, with quite a cake schedule, playing a lot of inferior teams and having their games spread out and they were able to bank a bunch of points. I'm really curious to revisit this 15 games for now because if it continues, then obviously it's going to be a case of what. The Bruins are just, they're doing it again, right? They keep getting away with it.

But I'm just curious to see if that's going to happen because there are some underlying signs that it's not necessarily the same story as it's been previously. Yeah, those are really good points. And another thing that strikes me about their lineup is that maybe not every single skater is two-way capable, is good. defensively, good offensively, but it's pretty close. So I think that certainly adds to sort of like the sum of all parts aspect of the Bruins where there's no, there's obviously weak links, you know, to some extent, but I feel like

you don't look on that roster and go like, this is a line that you can really target if you're the other team and you want your top guns out there and you can really feast on them. I just, I don't really see that. And at the same time, you know, coming into the season, I'm going Coil and Zaka as their top two centers, like, are we really doing this? But they've managed to not only survive, but thrive, coil especially. And Pasturac and Marchand obviously have a big influence on that as these play driving star level wingers. But they're just a really, I guess, solid's the wrong word. It's underselling it.

But like, I look at the roster and I don't see any, any glaring holes. And I think that goes a long way if you also have good coaching, good goaltending, and some star talent. Yeah, the continuity helps. Yeah, I'm not sure there's necessarily from like a bigger picture perspective, though. Like, you know, we always try to mine overarching lessons from this stuff, right? When something works, it's like, all right, how can, what can we squeeze out of this and then and then apply that elsewhere? and sometimes there's one-off. Sometimes there's things that are necessarily applicable.

I'm not sure there is here, but they're making it work certainly, and it's a very unique profile they've got this season. So we'll be curious to watch that moving forward. All right, John, let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we'll go through a series of other questions from our listeners. You are listening to the HockeyPedio cast streaming

on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right, we're back here in the Hockey PEO cast with John Mattis closing out the week with the listener mailbag. John, before we went to break, we were talking about the Bruins and their goaltending. And I think we hit that well enough. I just, I was just wanted to put a bow on it. You had made the point, which is a really astute one of just playing from my head so often, right, getting the jump on teams and then being able to sort of lean on them and not necessarily exposing yourself to unnecessary risks because you're playing from an advantageous position.

that's so huge for a team like this. But also up until the other day, like one of my favorite stats was the season was that Jeremy Swabin had given up like one goal from outside the slot all year. And then Allmark wasn't that far behind. And I just think we probably also underrate how, especially over the course of a regular season,

like most nights if you just don't beat yourself, the other team will find a way to do the opposite. Right? Like it's like just, let them make the mistakes and you'll win more games than not. And that's essentially the Bruins to a T there, right? Where it's like, not only is the goaltending really good and in the aggregate has been phenomenal, the shape, percentage, goals they have about expected all that, but they also just like don't give up bad goals. And that's just such an enormous luxury that most teams just

don't have the capability of. Okay, let's do a couple more questions here. So Kizu asks, Do you think the narrative of East good, West bad, for many hockey writers will change any time soon, considering Boston, who we just talked about, is still dominating the East despite having lost so many important pieces? The last two Cup winners were also decidedly from the West and the current Cup odds favor West teams as well. Often, at the end of the year, people will look at point totals and compare the conferences with the East typically being much higher at the top. But that seems counterintuitive to me because wouldn't high quality. competition result in lower point totals and more parity. It seems like the East has a few elite teams just farming points off of worst teams and

stacking their point totals, giving perception of them being stronger. Teams like Washington and Philadelphia, for example, we'll talk Washington more with a future question here in a second, sit in a playoff spot in the East while a team like Edmonton is mightily struggling in the West, or is this all just a byproduct of hockey media being mostly based out East? So this is an interesting one because certainly last year, I always spoke about on this show quite a bit, there was this trend where every time the East would play the West, the East teams were just like absolutely massacring them all year, right? And it might have

leveled off a bit as the year went along, but I remember through like the halfway mark, it was some sort of comically lopsided amount every time the conference is played against each other. Now, that's, I think, more so random. I don't think that's necessarily something that is like this big picture trend. But just based on where we are at right now, I think that's a good time for us to get a bit of a pulse check in terms of like, the state of the league at the moment in terms of the hierarchy and where the power is currently residing, right? Or whether it is just balanced or whether we still don't know because we are 20 games in, but obviously some of the teams we expect it to be good have not done so. And then maybe

there's some teams that have risen as a result that we weren't as high on heading in. I don't know where you are, but it seems like a Vegas Boston Cup final would make the most sense as far as the dominance and being in different conferences. And I don't think that's overly surprising. Obviously Boston to some extent, as we talked about in the other segment, because everyone thought that they would take a step back. But ultimately, they were the president's trophy team last year. So I see, I don't, I don't see like, you know, the West having seven excellent teams

in the East having two or something to that effect. But, I mean, the Oilers, uh, starting off the season that the way that they have, has really thrown off the cup conversation in my opinion because I wasn't alone in thinking that they would make it to the cup final and potentially win and I was certainly one of those people. And I think in the east, like you can make the argument that the Florida Panthers are one of the most surprising teams just coming into the season. It was obvious. It was a no brainer to count them out given the injuries to Montour and to who else was out. Montour.

Ekblatt. And then Bennett, right hand it missed. Pretty much all the first, like, 15 games or so. So I think when you, you know, you kind of balance that out where it's like, okay, one East team has overperformed, one West team is underperformed. When I look at the standings, I, you know, I don't see one conference overly dominant. I think, you know, Colorado is a bit of a sleeping giant. I know that they are currently tied in a three-way tie in the central.

So maybe sleeping giant might be the wrong. wrong term because they are playing well. But I think, you know, if we're looking at teams on paper and their potential, they're ceiling, they're certainly in the cup conversation. So it's a bit of I mean, you know, we'll see, you know, three quarters of the way through what the what the standings look like and if there's an imbalance. But I wouldn't say that it's, it's this big imbalance at this moment. Yeah. I think part of it is right, the past couple of years, especially in the Atlantic where it was like, all right, well, no matter what delete. do this regular season, they can have as many points as they want, but somehow they're going to

wind up playing, like, they might be the second or third best team in the league, and they're going to play like the fourth or fifth best team in round one because of the way the league structures its playoff playoff format, right, with the two versus three seed in a division. And so that just felt like obviously we'd have a lot of conversations about whether we're doing this right way and whether we should be going to either the one through eight format again or potentially a pipe dream of a one through 16 and trying to sort of by point percentage and trying to get some sort of balance there and I guess a meritocracy more so than anything where you're actually rewarded for a strong regular season and then you're not your reward isn't playing a team who is your

equal in round one right but I think this year the Atlantic has opened up quite a bit I know Boston is 14 to 3 you mentioned them as the favorite I really like this panthers team I think especially as they get healthy, like they've been so good defensively this year as a team, and they're playing the same way they played last year, and that forward group is fantastic. And so I think they're as live as anyone there. Whereas in the West, I've been talking up the Kings quite a bit, and it looks like this, that conversation or conundrum might have shifted to the Pacific where we thought heading in to be the weakest division, certainly Edmonton struggling in Calgary and Seattle, not being as good as we might have.

have anticipated heading into the year is one thing. But like, L.A. is, is such a good team, in my opinion, and has all the makings of just an absolute monster that matches up as well as anyone could possibly with this Vegas team. And they're like mirror images of each other. And that would just be an insane potential round two matchup. And they might be the two best teams in the league at the moment just based on the personnel they have. So I think the West is certainly, better this year and maybe a lot of those concerns about just like how good the top of the Atlantic is. It's kind of evened out a little bit.

But at the same time, the kind of the point that I've been making here on the show lately is also it feels like things have been kind of coming to the middle a bit of a little bit, regardless of the records that Boston and Vegas had to start the year. It feels like it's about as open as it's been. And the league certainly likes to champion that parody. But it really feels like there's, there's just so few teams other than I guess the sharks really right where it's like an automatic

two points where you play them whereas last year in the connor bernard sweepstakes right especially in the west with anaheim just being an absolute disaster all year under dallas akins and then the blackhawks tanking and the coyotes were were at the bottom as well and weren't trying to win and you had all of these teams and it felt like every single night the odds were pretty good that if you were a West team, you're going to be playing someone who wasn't even trying to win. And so it's like, all right, we're going to be able to load up on these points, whereas the East was much more balanced in that regard. This year, at least for the time being early in the season, there's been a bit less of that sort of division in the hierarchy, I guess.

Well, in someone I didn't mention, one team I didn't mention before was the Carolina Hurricanes who, on paper, coming into the season, I mean, arguably the deepest team, they had the track record of regular season success. Obviously, they've won. rounds in the playoffs haven't gone the distance. But just everything screamed Stanley Cup contender and they have 22 points in 19 games. So that certainly has thrown off. Coming off the heels of just being publicly eviscerated by Nikita Kuchrov. What timing we just released, Daryl Belprey and I released a full 50 minute episode on Nikita Kucharov, just saying his praises and getting into all the nerdy details about every little subtle trick that he has in his bag and how he does this. And then he

goes out on a Friday night and just absolutely like they scored eight goals on the 10 shots they took with them on the ice uh certainly not sustainable but also you watch it it it's like man this guy is just an absolute just monster in terms of just picking you apart and just always making the offensive zone the decision to leads to a high danger chance and so that kind of showed also the all the concerns that i have with carolina for all these years and the fact they just do not have that capability very few teams do, but like just to leverage the opportunities they do get into legitimately threatening ones. And so yeah, I just wanted to shout out because that's still on top of mind just watching what who dropped it to that last night. He's such an assassin like night to night

and then it was very much on display in that gong show of a game. But yeah, to circle back on on the question from for the mailbag, the Eastern bias, I think I think it's probably fair like in general if we're even taking this season's results and this season's projections out of it because I there's more media in the east every media member is human they have certain biases

um you know certain duties like say if you're a beat reporter for the Maple Leafs like you're focusing on that team a lot of the time and that means you're not watching a ton of Western conference games so you're not you're missing out on the subtleties of the Kings for example and how they, if you watch them, you go, not only can they put up points in the regular season,

but they're going to really pop them in playoff hockey. So I think that's part of it. And, and, you know, as a fan, I'm sure you go, people are probably screaming, like, they shouldn't be biased like this, but I think it's just the amount, the quantity of media in the East, it's just naturally going to make it

imbalanced as far as, you know, opinions that people have on certain teams and how the lens they see the league, You and I, obviously, we cover the full league, so we take a more holistic approach to things like you'll not necessarily have a Western bias to someone in Vancouver. And I tend to think as someone in Ontario, I don't really have an eastern bias because I do stay up late because I don't have to, you know, I'm not a leave speed writer who has to be kind of dialed in for different hours. But when I think it just becomes, it comes down to quantity. There's Toronto has a ton of the media contingent. New York does too.

And it starts to really thin out towards the west. So I don't think it's malicious or on purpose. I think it's just humans being humans with their biases. Yeah, it's more concentrated. But luckily we have a show like the PDO cast that's going to spend as much time as possible talking about the kings and seeing the phrases. And that's a good segue here. Next question.

Curtis asks, should the NHL adult? a most improved award like the NBA. And if so, were this season's way too early candidates for such an award. Now, I do think they should. And I do think we should also clarify the ground rules

between the methodology for what the award actually is because I think it's easy to get a mistaken or comeback player of the year, which in my opinion, the NHL also doesn't have. They have the mastered in, but it's like a trauma award.

It's not, it's not actually like every team gets a nominee a nominee as well so it's like here's 32 guys to feel bad about yeah like i get it it's like nice to have recognition for someone who's overcome personal difficulties whatever the capacity was to come back and perform at a high level that's great and that's honorable but i don't like it's like all right these are the 32 guys who have suffered the most now let's now let's judge accordingly who suffered the most out of those 32 do whereas it would be cool to see like a guy like all recman larsen for example i know it's early in the season but that would be a comeback right where part of it was injury based but also part of

it was ridden off clear decline for years not the player he used to be at his height and then goes to a new team and then all of a sudden gets rejuvenated and shows that he has more on the tank than maybe we thought he had any right to to have at this point right that's a comeback player of the year, in my opinion. But that's not necessarily, even though he improved from last year, in my opinion, that's not most improved. Because I think for me it needs to be, and this is going to skew towards younger players, certainly, but like a player who's on an upward trajectory, it is better than we previously viewed them. It can't be a player who might be better than they were last year or the past couple years, but still isn't at their best.

Like, if it's not, it can be like a post-prime thing, in my opinion, I guess. Yeah, it would definitely, it would definitely, First of all, I don't hate this idea. I think it's actually quite a good idea and would create a lot of debate and a lot of discussion. I actually remember getting a most improved award as a minor hockey player. It felt like a bit of a backhanded compliment, but you know, you take it. And I think that if this was instituted, sophomores would just climb to the top of the list, right? So you see a bit of them as a rookie, you see some flashes, and then they really hit the ground running as sophomore.

And, you know, in terms of people that I would nominate this early in the season, Travis Sanheim comes to mind, Quentin Byfield, Mason McTavish. You know, Sanhheim's older, but McTavish and Byfield quite young. And they've come into their own, so to speak, you know, Byfield with the comfort level on that line with Kempe and Kobatar. You've discussed him on the show. I don't have to go in depth on him. McTavish, you know, he's top.

10 and inner slot shots per game. This guy just lives in the front of the net. And he's just such a hockey player, right? You look at him, you're like, this guy's going to play in the league for 20 years. He's probably going to be the Ducks captain. And he's just going to, quote, unquote, play the game the right way.

And we're certainly seeing that. And he brings a different dynamic to that Ducks team that's very skilled. I like the step that he's taken and just where he's headed. And Sanheim, I mean, very good underlying numbers. And he leads Flyers skaters. with 26 minutes a night. And that's four minutes more than the second person.

And that's notable because his coach is John Totorello, who does not, you know, give out minutes just to anyone. Like, you got to earn it. And I think that he's a pretty good example of someone who is, I think he's in his late 20s now, 27 or something like that. And he's, I don't know if, like, it's, you know, most improved for Sandheim might have to do more of a deep dive. but he's jumped off the page as far as someone who's, you know, leveled up this season.

I mean, was healthy scratch last year and really they tried to trade him quite a bit before his No moon claws kicked in this past summer, right? So, and what if Tori Krug had waived his own? Oh, right, the Tori Krug. So, yeah, in terms of circumstances, certainly most improved. The answer is Byfield. I mean, just the step he's taken this year, leveraging. as we talked about all of his physical tools into functional dominance and just seeing him

apply it every game seemingly more and more often shift-to-shift basis has 15 points in his past 13 games like he's just such a beast and such a part of that top line and yeah we've spoken about him quite a bit but I do think he's the clear answer here in my opinion in terms of player that's just taken the biggest natural step from from last year to this year Luke Shen might like not at this very moment but last year or a year before that might be a sneaky good pick for a veteran his type of story where he's a stay at home defenseman and then he gets to work he's in the lab in the off season I can't remember it was Thomas Dranzer Armand Dial who did yeah he was working with Adam Oates yeah yeah and like you know there's sort of that narrative of of him reinventing himself to some extent but also still true to you know his qualities there's that mixed with you know, how well he played for the Leafs. I think that that would be an example of a veteran that you could throw into this conversation where there's some sort of stylistic change, some sort of step late in his career,

where you go, okay, like this isn't the same player we used to see and you can tell it's from hard work and really trying to improve himself. So I think that might be a good, you know, retroactive example. Well, someone in that vein, it's kind of cheating because he was already really good. And I just, this is a bit of a spoiler because my next show is going to be fully about this guy. But Quinn Hughes is, yes, a good one for this. And I don't want to spoil too much of that show, but you can like trace back the work and fundamental improvements he made in specific parts of his game that have played a big role in the step he's taken this year, right? It's not just like, young guy just naturally got better or got put in a better situation.

it's much more by design, I guess, or deliberate as opposed to just like organic. So he would be that. But yeah, I like commemorating like players who went from not impactful to like legitimately very valuable as opposed to going from like really good to even better. Because that's like it's very important. And it's obviously made a huge difference in Hughes's case for the Canucks. But I think it's just kind of cooler to see like the step of guy like Byfields. taken, right? And kind of what that's meant. Okay. One more question here from space squirrel. I'm thrilled the capitals in our playoffs bar right now, but are they legit or are they just getting

crazy goalie performances? Now even after yesterday's spanking at the hands of the Edmonton Oilers, I think it goes five-nothing at the end, they have a 10-5-2 record. They're third in the east in point percentage as we're speaking here. I wrote them all for the start of the year, especially, I think they started like one, three, and one or something. We're averaging about a goal game through that stretch with their shooting percentages completely in the toilet. Now, there's still 31st in the league in scoring, only scoring more often than the San Jose sharks, so it hasn't really meaningfully improved.

But they've been getting really good goaltending, and they've been winning a lot of games. So where are we at with the Capitals? Was I too quick to write them off? Or is this just sort of delaying? the inevitable, I guess. I think it's mostly delaying the inevitable. The thing with the capitals that I find difficult to get behind is they're so old and I like, you know, you lose Baxter and Patchretti still hasn't come back.

When I look at the roster, I just see a fringe playoff team at best, like best case scenario. And according to hockey reference, they do this strength of schedule metric and they've had the easiest schedule so far, the capitals. So, you know, take that for what it's worth. I'm not quite sure what goes into that metric. But if you're last, that means that your schedule has probably been pretty, pretty easy. And eighth and team save percentage. And when I look at Darcy Kemper and Lingren, I don't necessarily see a tandem that that should be eighth and save percentage.

That doesn't mean they can't, you know, sustain it over a season as possible. But that's another red flag or warning sign that perhaps what we've seen over the last few weeks is not quite, what they will be by the end of the season. And I also don't see any major breakout performances from young skaters. Conrad McCormick-Michel's Lipped R.A., I think that he's, you know, he could be a breakout player, but, you know, is it a major breakout for him?

I don't think so. In terms of being that real play driver. So it's one of those things where you go, good for you guys that you've gotten these wins. And I don't think that they're, you know, it's like not they're obviously well earned. It's not like they're lucking into this, this little run here completely.

But if you're trying to project forward and trying to be realistic about things, I would say it's mostly going to come back to the start of the season and they'll, they'll finish, you know, outside the playoff spot playoff cut line by five, six, seven points, something like that.

Yeah, there are five, and two and one goal games, which we know, um, can be coined flips. and probably not something you should be fully relying on to the degree they have. Despite the fact they're 10-5-and-2, as I said, minus 7 goal differential for the season,

which is like they're largely just getting by the scatterer teeth. Yeah, I don't, like Charlie Lindgren has a plus 8 goal stable above expected. I like the defensive personnel they have, but you look and only the sharks are giving up more inner slot shots against than they are. It really has been just really strong goal-tending, particularly from Lincoln this season and offensively, they're 26th in terms of generating inner slot shots of their own. So I don't think there's reason to believe that there's going to be meaningful offensive uptick as well. So yeah, on the one hand, like you said, if you told

me, if we're having this conversation at the start of the new year in January and they had 10 wins, I'd be like, yeah, I believe it. If you had told me that a couple weeks ago, and now they already have 10 in their first 17 games. So clearly have exceeded expectations. But yeah, I would, I would not be expecting anything resembling this. I continued unless they, like, meaningfully improved the way they've been playing, because this is not a formula for success moving forward. Okay.

John, we got to get out of here. This is a blast. It was good to have you on again and get into the listener questions to close the week out. I'll let you plug some stuff here on the way out and, uh, and let the listeners know where they can check you up. Sure.

So your best bet is just follow me on Twitter because I post all my links there. Um, or download the score app. And, you know, if you're listening, you probably already have it, but if you don't, you're missing out. And so on Twitter, I'm at Mattis John. That's M-A-T-I-S-S-ed, J-O-H-N, and nothing else to plug on my end. But I would like to say, I'm in the Discord for the P-D-O-Cast, and it is popping in there. Some great questions, great conversation, some memes. It's the best of every world, and certainly

a lot better than Twitter. So I'd recommend that. That's my plug. I'm going to plug the discord. I mean, I'm obviously biased, but I genuinely mean it. It's become a thing where out of habit, like, if I'm watching a game and something happens, or even when I like wake up in the morning and I'm, I'm like catching up on my phone, it's become one of the first, if not the first things I check, right? It used to like automatically be Twitter and then like maybe Instagram, my email and stuff. Like now, I'm like, I just want to get in there and see what people are saying because the conversation's been that good. And it's just always, like if something's happening, people are talking about it. It's a blast. And so I've been really enjoying and I'm proud of the community we're building up there.

And if you want to get involved, if you're not in there yet, the invite link is in the show notes, as we keep talking about. So just get in there. If you can't find it, feel free to message me. I'll pass it along. You can get in there and not only easily access people like myself and John and a lot of other people that appear on the show, but also just chat with fellow listeners and other people who are as deranged as we are about this sport. And as always, willing to chat about it. So yeah, that's a co-sign from me. This is the blast man. Highly recommend everyone checking out your work. I love reading the way you cover the game and I love having you on here. So we'll do that again soon. And that's going to be it for another week of shows.

Like I said, we've got Daryl Bellby coming on to start next week with a Quinn He's Deep dive. So check that out on the YouTube page as well under the HockeyPedioCas banner. And thank you to everyone for listening to us. We'll be back with more of the HockeyPediocast on the Sportsnet Radio Network.