The Hockey PDOcast - Mat Barzal’s Game, and Turning Talent Into Points

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Darryl Belfry to break down Mat Barzal's game, things that have limited his point production in the past, and adjustments both he and the players around him have made this season. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Progressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name is Demetri Fulpovich, and joining me is my good buddy, Daryl, Belfrey, Daryl. What's going on, then? Feeling much better this week, so I'm excited to get into this with me feeling 100%. I'm excited.

Well, if that was life, last week was you at less than 100%, then I'm scared to see what today is going to look like. but I think it's going to be a barn burner. And this week's Muse is Matt Barzell. We've been teasing it for a couple weeks now. And I'm really excited to get into this one for a variety of reasons. I think he's a very interesting player, certainly. He switched positions this year, which we're going to get into and sort of the ramifications of that.

He recently had a coaching change, and I think that's been a big part of his journey in NHL over the past five or six years. And then most notably he's been a player who's kind of generally confounded us, I think, because you watch him play and the talent is so visible and abundant, yet at the end of the year, you look at the production. And at least in terms of counting stats and points, it lags a bit behind what you'd expect from a player who looks the way he does. And so we're going to get into all that stuff and unpack it and how it all intertwines. I'll start with this.

This is a player that generally I'm like, Daryl, who do you want to talk about? And then I give you a bunch of guys and you pick one. In this case, this is a player that I think you had highlighted and really wanted to highlight and to talk about on today's show. So what intrigues you so much about Matt Barzell and kind of why did you want to pick him as our subject this week? Well, Matt Barzell, like I know Matt very well, and I have gone through the same gamut of emotions

in working with him and watching him as everybody has. And the main question is, how can a guy who could be in, the top five in overall skill set in the entire NHL and repeatedly in year in and year out generate the number of chances that he generates and not have that correlate itself into into to your point the production that it needs to be and you know we've been a lot of sleepless nights trying to figure out exactly what this is. And the thing and the reason why I thought he'd be a great topic for us in our forum

is because it's not one thing. It's never one thing. It's always a lot of different factors. And you've highlighted a few of them, you know, whether it be coaching changes, the style of play that they played for the longest time in Long Island, switching positions is extremely difficult. And then being a primarily pass-first guy, that is sometimes difficult

because once the puck leaves your stick, you have no more control over the play. And so, you know, I think that he's fascinating and I think that, you know, just even just talking about his skill set and just how elite it actually is and the types of things that he does to generate scoring chances. He's not a one-trick pony. He has a multitude of different ways in which he does generate chances. So I think he's rich in terms of the ability of the things that we can study and learn from a player like this. and also just, you know, where the conversation could go

could be fascinating stuff. Well, I'm looking forward to doing all that with you here today, and we certainly will. Let me just set the scene so that everyone knows exactly what we're dealing with here. And he starts off right out of the gate in 2017-18. He has 22 goals, 63 assists, 85 points in his rookie season. And that still represents the high watermark for him. In the next five years after that, he doesn't top 62 points.

And he doesn't even really come close to approaching a point. per game in any of those seasons, even when you account for injuries and time miss because of COVID and shortened seasons and all that. Now, in that rookie year, the head coach was Doug Waite and they played a very loosey-goosey open, no real interest in defending track meet style. And that obviously was a very fun environment to play in and they scored a lot. They also gave up even more themselves. And so they bring in Barry Trots the next season. And it's impossible to argue with the results, especially in that three-year window where I think they won six postseason series. along the way and really push that loaded Tampa Bay team in back-to-back seasons in the conference finals.

But you look at the production on a team level in those seasons. And in that Doug Waite year and his rookie year, they were seventh in goals per hour as a team. That after that, 22nd, 22nd, 23rd, 22nd, 24th this year. And so I think that kind of illustrates what we're working with. And I think we have to start the conversation there, right? because on the one hand, I do think Matt Barzell has a lot of tendencies of like a transcendent talent and his ability to just freelance himself and break through of whatever restrictions,

a system or a team structure may present. But at the same time, especially for a young player kind of integrating himself in the league, it's difficult to overcome that, especially for large stretches, right? And so based on how they've wanted to play and what they've asked from them and the talent they've surrounded him with, I think that's a very important sort of part to provide the context, right?

Because we're going to speak so glowingly about the individual skills he possesses. And then yet you pull up his elite prospects page and you look at the points and you're like, all right, what are we really talking about here? But I think that does have to factor into how you view this. Yeah, he is, it's awesome because like individual talent is not enough in this league. and the situation that you're in is definitely a factor. And I think that in his case, as you, I thought you painted the picture very well.

It's been a lot of the things that the islanders have tried to do as an organization to try to win our counter, their counter to the way in which he is going to be productive. So the onus always goes. to the player. It's up to him to adjust. He has to find a way and figure out in this, in the way that things are, he's got to find a way to, to break through. Now, one of the big challenges that he has is he, he excels in a pull-up game and will often pass to defensemen. and a large number of his shot assists are to defensemen,

which is a hard, at which who are shooting from the point, which is already you have a large, and this is one of the factors that weighs into production is the islanders off the rush have been a one and done team a lot, largely throughout his career, which is what you're talking about, when you're talking about the, you know, the goals that they score per hour

and they're being in the bottom third of the league. That's what that is. They don't tend to generate in bunches. They've been a team that, you know, they'll score on the power play. They get some five on five, but they're not going to be world beaters there. So here you have a guy who's a pull up rushed, basically a magician off the rush, who then pulls up and passes to the, basically, like the lowest percentage shot chance is what he is defaulting to often.

And that is one of the staple pieces that make it difficult for him is just that. Well, let's get into that because this year, according to the statletes, he's averaging about six zone entries via carry per game. And that puts him in very rarefied air, right? The only guys who average more are Nathan McKinnon, Jack Hughes, when he's been healthy, Connor McDavid, and Jack Eichol. These are very elite transition players, right? And I think what's interesting about the way Matt Barzell does it is unlike some of those

names I mentioned there, and maybe similar to a Jack Hughes, is that he doesn't necessarily do it with sort of blow you away speed, right? Like, he can certainly get up and down the ice, and when he turns on the jets, he can lose a defender in the dust. But for me, what's so fascinating watching the way he operates. the neutral zone and how he kind of maneuvers is he incorporates so many more changes of pace and stops and starts, right? And I thought it was really interesting just playing around with the, with the NHL data they have on their official website. They have them down for just 12 bursts of

22 miles an hour or more this season. And to put that into perspective, Nathan McKinnon has 71 of those. Now he's obviously a freak and kind of in his own conversation this season, but even guys like McDavid point hints are all in the 40s. And so Barzell, is not necessarily just sprinting like that. Instead, he's doing it in a much more sort of stop and start manner. I imagine that as well sort of ties into this conversation from like an individual versus team perspective of having players who can figure out how to deal with that, right? Where if you know which speed a guy is going, even if you can't keep up, at least you can sort of plan for that. Whereas with him, I think there's such a layer of like unpredictability to his game that it must be

tricky sometimes for the people sharing that he's with him as well. Yeah, he's a he's a differential skater. So he excels in differential. Oftentimes his best rushes will be times in which he's circled back into the neutral zone and then reentered and allowed the opposition to get into their rush defense of like stacking players on the line. He's not he's not intimidated by that at all. he'll play off that differential. And I think one of the other factors that weighs into where he's at is he can be difficult to play with because he has the puck on his stick so much. And what I mean so much, it's not so often.

I mean, in the stretches of which he has a possession, he will often have the puck for seven, eight, nine, ten seconds at a time. before he makes a play. And the significance of that is that players around him will stop moving. So you have like a window of opportunity when you first get the puck in which players are darting into space. They're looking to, you know, create a configuration for a play. Once that play passes, so there's like a two second window in which, that player darts into an area.

Another player darts into another area. The puck carrier is also looking for some space. And then there's like an initial play that materializes. When that window is not there, maybe he doesn't like it. He thinks that maybe there's a better play available. So he extends the possession. When he extends the possession, often, and this has been, I think, a major part of his problem in New York is that players stop skating.

They just stopped moving. And so now he's trying to manufacture a better chance at times when everyone is static and standing still. So he has to create such a much higher chance for it to go in because the people around him have stopped engaging. And in New York for the last few years, I feel like that's been a number one aspect for him, which is, I think, a fascinating thing to talk about as it relates to his skill. Well, I'll add one other thing to that then. And this is going to be a common theme throughout this conversation about him. While I think puck dominance is very, like, highlight real worthy and eye popping and it like brings your eyes and attention to it.

It can also be limiting in some ways. And what I mean by that in terms of that stat I gave you about the zone entries and how, and you're talking about how much he has the puck on his stick, they rely on him. so heavily for all puck transportation, right, that he's always having to attack against a set defense in a way. Sometimes you can get out and transition on a breakaway or find an opening and break through, but he never really is afforded the luxury of skating up the ice kind of unmanned and laying low and then popping up and being wide open and getting an opportunity to attack from half ice down because generally he's the one carrying it and the person

with the puck, it's everyone's attention. So everyone on the other team is watching him. They know where he is. They're tracking him pretty much from deep in his own zone all the way through the neutral zone. And so every single kind of hurdle he has to cross slows him down in a way and adds a layer of unpredictability or difficulty that eventually is going to be too tough to overcome, right? And so I think that's a struggle he deals with where he's so good at it and they don't

have very many other options that can lighten the load in that regard. So I don't know what the alternative is. But I think that's a bit of a limiting factor for him in terms of why isn't he producing so much? It's because he's the one that's having to lug the puck up the ice the entire way with all of this added defensive attention. That's exactly it. And then once he gets in the offensive zone, you know, he'll come in. He'll pull, he'll, he gets the entry. He pulls up.

The play is, an immediate play is not there to his liking. He extends the possession, looking to improve the conditions. As he improves the conditions, his linemates come to a complete stop. So now while he's improving his ice and getting into better ice, maybe he gets the middle of the ice or he, you know, he beats somebody one on one and he's creating some opportunity. Everyone else around him is stopped. So they're no longer engaging. They're no longer moving until he moves the puck. And so he's playing at really a deficit.

So a lot of times what I've found with him is I feel like he plays. is one versus five a lot. And maybe you can argue, and then so a lot of times like the D, he defaults to the D because they're, they're the best play available at that point. But they're not really the best option for generating scoring chances. They're just the best option available after he's exhausted all those other opportunities.

So this also happened, Barzell's arc has also happened with Malkin. Malkin is another guy. When I first started Malkin, he was having the puck on his stick for like 12 seconds at a time. Like it was completely crazy. He would have the puck four seconds, like for a four second stretch. He'd do that 15 times a game.

It was nuts. You can't, it's hard to do that in the NHL today because it's so much like you got to, you know, you got to move it. and then you've got to try to get it back. But Barzell's skill set allows him to be able to move, no matter what kind of situation you can put him in, he can find a way out of that and skate to better ice. So it's alluring for him to find those spaces.

And if he doesn't like it, like you always want players to solve problems. So he gets in, he's playing one versus five. Everyone else has come to a stop. He's like, you know what, I'll improve the conditions. So he moves to the next best area. But by doing that, he's grounded his guys into a stop. And now he's kind of stuck.

So what the answer is is he has to attack the net more himself earlier in the sequence. And this year, he is on a better path and a better trajectory because he's been so much more willing to take Pucks to the net himself earlier. And then from that shot, they get a recovery. The play resets. He gets another puck touch. And I think that the conditions that improve from there. But it's a real quandary because he's brilliant. And his skill set is so captivating.

But yet it has to be in the right conditions for other people to benefit, which is really where he's been at. there have been some changes though this year and i think it's time for us to get into them he's on pace for 87 points he's seventh in the league in primary assists and there's two areas that i think are really worth uh hammering hammering home today one is getting to play with bow horvatt and moving into a wing right the two of them have played 600 515 minutes together this season they have 57% of the shots 54% of the high danger chances they're up 32 12 21 they've been dominating together and I think seeing the way they interact right it's been a while since i mean maybe since

kind of prime manders lee and even he did it in a bit of a different way where he was more sort of meat and potatoes around the net with rebounds and tips and kind of the greasy stuff but just having a finisher who can carve out space for himself in the slot and present as a shooting option right and bohorvat is a lead at that he's really good at sniffing out soft spots and coverage standing there and then when the past comes to him, quickly releasing before the defense can converge on him. And so the two of them have shown really good chemistry playing in that way. And I kind of wanted to talk about that a little bit, but whether you want to focus on the change in responsibilities in terms of moving from Senator to wing or just the interaction,

I guess, between the two of them and how it's been this sort of mutually beneficial chemistry. Well, I think both go hand in hand. And so what one of the things with the interaction between Barzell and Holmell and Horvat is that Horvatt is a center who does not really love playing the middle of the ice. So he's a guy who once he gets out into the neutral zone, he will get out into the flags and get into the wing situation, which is beautiful for Barzell because Barzell is now a winger who basically plays the middle of the ice. The difficulty for Matt over the course of the transition of playing as a winger and then learning to. to play wing and figuring out how that can become good for him. And he can still find his way to play where he wants to play,

which is largely in the middle of the ice, he's figuring out how to get off the wall and get into the middle and all those sorts of things. But if he had a centerman who wanted to play in the middle of the ice, it would be that much, that much more difficult. What I do like about Horvatt is that he isn't like married to the middle of the ice like a lot of centermen are.

Centermen who don't love to play in the middle of the ice, those are not usually my favorite guys. I like a centerman who likes to play in the middle of the ice. The only way that it kind of works is when you have a guy like Barzell who loves the middle of the ice. And as a winger, he comes off. You'll see him come off the wall time and time again, take the middle of the ice and then control the play from there.

And that really does help. And I think that Barzell or Horvats' deferrence and a willingness to allow that to go on and give up the middle of the ice for Barzell allows it to work off the rush much more effectively than it would if he if he wasn't as comfortable with that. Now, early on in the process of Matt becoming a winger is that he would stay on the wing too long. and he would lose a lot of his options that he's more familiar with, which are through the middle of the ice, the ability to go both directions and control, pace, and play. When you are a player like him and you stay on the boards, it's extremely limiting and makes it much more difficult for him

to really generate the quality of play and chances that he's, that he's accustomed to. So when you watch him and you watch how he's generating, rating his chances. The biggest adjustment has been, okay, I'm starting as the winger. I come back in the D zone. I'm a winger. I'm on the boards or I'm on the weak side forward. How do I stay or attack or control the middle of the ice, which is where my skill set and strengths are while I'm doing it. And that is very different. It's hard. He's used to getting pucks on exits in certain areas of the ice in the middle on pops from the winger to him

with speed where he has a differential and he can blow the doors off of a winger or the two defensemen who are in awkward spots as he come flying out of the zone those situations just aren't there and i think that's part of the stat number that you were quoting about his number of bursts over 20 miles an hour. This is part of it. He's used to being at the goal line. Puck goes up to the winger. Winger pops it to the middle.

He gets it now as he's exiting the top of the circle, but he's in the middle of the ice. And now he's going. Now that puck is he's the winger. So now he's getting it. He gets it. He comes off the wall. And now it's much more of a different.

differential situation. So it has been a real adjustment to try to figure out, to have a guy whose skill set is kind of tailor made to be in the middle of the ice, who's now on the boards and having to figure out those, that's definitely a learning curve. Because you get the puck in different spots. That's the problem. No, certainly. And I think where you're seeing that pay its biggest advantage or where they're taking advantage of it the most is actually off of these set plays. They're running off of bone zone draws taken at the left circle, right? And I'm sure you've noticed this as well, where Horvatt wins it back, and that allows Barzal all of a sudden have the puck on his strong side, and he's moving towards the middle. And so what happens is the defense then quickly collapses and converges on him in the middle to stop him from going straight to the net.

And then that's exactly what I think he'd actually even prefer them to do, because then he gets to kind of pop the puck over to the right shot defenseman who's coming down that right circle. and they get a great opportunity. And whether that's Noah Dobson, and we're going to talk more about him and their chemistry together in a second, or Ryan Pulock when he's healthy, all of a sudden you've got a really interesting shooting option there as well. And it is a defenseman shooting. And I know we talk about how that's less efficient.

But from that spot, I'll take that much more often than sort of a deep point shot. Right. So it's been kind of fun seeing them interact in that way. And that I think highlights exactly what you're saying in practical usage in terms of getting Barzal in different positions and then making the most of his skill set from those spots. Yeah, I mean, the other thing that you'll see with him,

Barzell will come out, he'll gain entry, whether he's swinging from the middle of the ice to the outside, or he starts in the middle of the ice, and then he goes to the outside. Then he'll pull up what you're seeing from him this year that I think has been a great addition is what we used to call the European pick, which is basically like after he pulls up,

he comes off the boards. So now he's like more in line with the dot. And he draws a checker, usually that high defensive forward. He'll draw that checker to him and set like a pick and leave the puck for the next wave of guy coming down, which has been,

whether it be a forward like Horvatt or to your. point, it's most often these D. And now what's happening is the D picks up that puck and they're now attacking down onto the net and they're getting shots from

interior, middle distance, chances or below the dots in the offensive zone. And that's really, I think, improve the rush game chances for him. Because when you pull up, oftentimes it's like the best play is going to be wide.

wide and late to a D who's catching the puck just as he's crossing the blue line and then shooting from there. Now because he's done this pull up, now he like engages that defensive forward and then he sets this pick which kind of opens up that outside lane for them to attack down. Now instead of shooting from the blue line, they're shooting from the dot or inside the top of the circle. It's a much more dangerous shot. You'll also see their D will come down yet below the dot, and they might make like an interior pass from there. Or like just the chances that are coming from those plays are just so much more significant than they have been in years past.

Okay, Daryl, let's take our break here. And then we come back. We'll pick things right back up and keep chatting about Matt Bersel. You're listening to the HockeyPedio cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. Big guests and bigger opinions on everything happening in Leifeland. Real Gipper and Born. Be sure to subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back here in the HockeyPedio cast, joined by Daryl Belfry to break down Matt Barzal's game.

Daryl, something we've hinted at in passing that's limited their offensive efficiency in the past has been. In the half court offense, he's sort of probing around, right? he's got the puck on his stick. He's skating around the net. He's trying to find a place to attack, a place to get the puck. And oftentimes it's been, all right, I'm going to funnel this back up to the point. It's going to be a low percentage point shot. And then if we get the rebound, we'll just do it all over again.

And that's a very inefficient way of creating offense in today's game. And so one adjustment that they've made this year, and I think it helps that no adoption has really come into his own. And he can just kind of tie into that Nick Tyler's conversation we had about frustration of timing and guys who can keep up with you. He finally has a running mate in that regard that can think the game the same way and see that developing before it really does. And so you have Barzal works the way around the net,

is working up towards the wall, and then they run that exchange or pick and roll. And Dobson now coming down the right wall on his strong side is so good at keeping his head up and looking for that backdoor sort of play with either the weak side defender streaking down or a Horvatt or a Lee kind of around the net. And I think that's why Dobson is, top five in primary assist the season and he's having a monster year himself but just seeing them

sort of take something that wasn't working before and then incorporate a different wrinkle to it and then get these types of results i think has been really satisfying to see it if anything i want more of those actions because i think that's like that's when hockey is at its best right when you have everyone constantly moving and engaging everyone and these are all concepts that i think we keep harping on every week you and i talk yeah there's that play right there in the in the in the of clips so um one of the things that i think is is this is exactly the play here it's it's a hundred percent it and then all of a sudden it's done like they run that about 10 times the season at least yeah yes for for for for goals but it happens quite off like he'll do it on

a on a on a reasonably close to nightly basis like they do those types of plays but the idea when Matt over the last few years, he would get the puck in the offensive zone in a half court offense type play. You would see him get the puck on a side change, usually on towards, like to his off wing side. He would get the puck off like the back wall and then he'd start climbing. He would job. It was like, I used to call it like elastic band offense. So he would like get that D to come over and come to him. Oftentimes he would slow down to get, invite that defender to come close to him.

Then he'd start pulling the defenseman, like stretching him out outside the, over the dots. And then he'd spin off of them and then start attacking. So it was like this whole like stretch him out. And then as he spun, he would then take off and find his way going to the net. And if he didn't like that, of course, then he'd spin again. And he'd get into these like long offensive. zone sequences where he had the puck and he's twisting and turning and spinning in these cutback situations. And it's just hard to do that now. It's really hard to do that. So rather than play

that cutback elastic band type offense, now he's gone to this where he climbs. He's not playing that defenseman now. He's coming higher in the zone and he's engaging the D that way because he does like to use the D, particularly in that elastic band offense, what he would do too is he'd spin down, and then he'd make a cross-diagonal pass up to the weak side D who was shooting from, you know, 55 feet, rather than Barzell, who had beat his check off the wall, shooting from inside the dots at like 30 feet, 35 feet.

So it's just different, right? And now he's got that D coming downhill. into plays, coming down into spots. So it's just, I think it's much more conducive. This league for generating shot chances, it's a middle distance league. And then it's middle distance and net front. Like net front obviously is where the payoff is.

But often the most dangerous part of the chance initially is through middle distance, guy coming downhill into middle distance. And then the rebounds or tips or deflections or. guy falling off the heels and all that stuff, that comes off of that. So the whole idea is to try to find more ways into middle distance. And I think that's been the adjustment of Barzell that he's made over the last couple, like over the last couple of years, but particularly this year, I think you see it more and more,

where his shot assists are now getting into areas where the guy is now shooting from more middle distance areas. Even in your highlight pack, you can see it. It's one after the other of middle distance shot chances. And that is a major change from where he was, say, two, three years ago where so much of his shot assist stuff were elastic band offense, passed to the weak side defenseman, guy shoots from 55 feet. The other team gets it, breaks out. And another development in his game has been his shot, or at least the frequency that he's utilizing. And I want to talk about that with you a little bit.

in the four games since Patrick Watt took over, he's had 27 shot attempts, and that's kind of just a continuation of a season-long trend for him, where he's now up to 9.2 shots on goal per 60. He had never hit 8 in a season previously, and 16.2 attempts per 60, and he's kind of been living in that 11 to 12 range. So those are pretty dramatic increases for him in terms of how frequently he's firing. And we've spoken about how part of that is just, like, you know, being in different positions.

but I think a part of it is also for him incorporating that a little bit more into his game because he clearly has the shooting talent. I think this is going to sort of mirror a little bit of the conversation we had when we talked about Jack Eichol. But when you watch him shoot, he's clearly got the shooting talent. He's always, I think, going to be more profile askew more as a playmaker. And I think he wants to distribute the puck. But there's no reason for him not to be in that 20 to 25 goal range, at least with the weapon that he has. and yet it's been a bit of a limiting factor for him in the past in terms of his production. So I kind of want to talk to you a little bit about incorporating that a little bit more

and maybe even other wrinkles that can come along the way to making that more of a factor in his scoring pro bono. Well, part of the issue with him is I do, I believe his shot has been excellent for a few years now. I don't think initially when he first came in the league, it was as much of a weapon. But he spent a lot of time working on it. It's definitely better. and he is able to generate a lot of good chances and can score from good distances with his shot. All that being said, for Matt Barzel, his shot in a shooting situation is exclusively mindset. When he's attacking and has an attack mentality and is not doing what we were talking about before,

which is extending possessions into trying to improve the conditions and everyone against stop. He's now making decisions to be more threatening with himself earlier, which keeps people moving. And the value of keeping people moving is they can then contribute to puck recovery. What was happening with Matt earlier was like in years gone by is he would extend possessions, get people stopped. Now he gets to a point where he wants to shoot or he creates a distance point shot. Now he's got all like four of the five people on his team are standing still.

So now they lose the race and the other team is breaking out. So you see now he's getting more and more extended possessions, but it's coming from him, his willingness to shoot the puck. Because now he's not having the puck for such long distances, a long time. He has more shot chances and he's getting the puck more frequently. So rather than have the puck 20 times a night and having the puck for a minute and a half on his stick,

he's now got the puck 35 times a night and he still gets the same puck time on his stick because it's the frequency of when he get it. So for him it's a mentality and his skill set is so alluring and he knows he can win these battles and win these races and he knows where the puck is supposed to go and he goes there but now he's much more threatening. And I think with him, his shot and the way in which he's approached his shooting

is I think it's a personal concession that in order for him to take his game to the next level, he has to keep more people on the ice engaged. And by shooting it while those people are still moving, even though that might not have not be as instinctual to him, it is more productive. And then it allows them to stay in motion for when he does want to pass it. So it's not to say that he's shooting all the time, but his shooting is definitely up.

He's looking at himself as a primary shot earlier. And I think that attack mentality is what opens up other aspects of his game. Like the surest way to eliminate yourself as a playmaker is to focus on being a playmaker. Because as soon as you start thinking, I'm just going to pass, pass, pass. You don't view yourself as the better option at any point. everyone knows you're not going to shoot so now they can just play everyone else and just the quality of the pass that you have to make now is just so high and even when you do make it everyone knows you're going to make it so they're much more aware of what your options are

you just stack the deck so far against you the best way to be a great playmaker is actually to incorporate the shot threat and have it be legitimate where you can score because and it forces the defenders to play you more honestly. Yeah, it's like that Michael Scott scene in the office where he says, like sometimes I'll start a sentence and I don't even know where it's going. I just hope I find it along the way. That's how I feel sometimes watching Matt Marzal in the offensive zone. And it's a blessing and a curse, right?

Because when it works out and something opens up, it's like, all right, that was beautiful. There's so few people in the world that can actually pull off what he just did. But then there's times where he'll probe around and he'll exhaust. And I know this is a concept you're big on. exhaust every single option available to him. And then as a last resort, he'll fling the puck on net from a low percentage area just because he has no other recourse. He's kind of worked himself into a tough spot. And those are not only low percentage shots, but also like they count the same in terms of, all right, he took a shot attempt. That must mean he's being aggressive,

but in reality, it's not the same, right? No two shots are created equal. And I just think of like, you see for someone like Artemi Panera in this season where he clearly made a concerted effort to just be much more intentional and decisive with his shooting and the volume's gone up but also how early in sequences he's actually releasing has gone up and so that makes him so much more dangerous as the threat as a shooter right and i think you're seeing that from matt a little bit this season where there's that power of the intentionality and that's something that in our conversations over these past couple months that concept's really grown on me in terms of the importance of it for shooters it's not just shooting it more often.

It's actually when you shoot it, it dictates kind of how dangerous that shot can be. Yeah, so shot range, shot distance, the intentional aspect of shooting with an understanding of where your support is, like all those things become factors in becoming a shooter. Because regardless of how good a shooter you are, I mean, you're still going to be at, what, 12 to 14%,

maybe 15% if you're having a career year. So you still have 85 out of 100 that are not going in. So you have to count for that in your shooting. You have to put yourself in a spot where you are, you're giving yourself an opportunity to get the puck back. So the shot is almost like can sometimes be an indirect pass for an opportunity to be able to continue the sequence. And with players like, you know, I mean,

Kutrov went through this and anybody who's a gifted passer, they go through these periods of time where they just aren't shooting. And I think with Matt, sometimes his shot and the way in which he is in from an, in his attack routes to the net and how much pressure, personal pressure he's putting on the net is a reflection of how he's feeling in terms of his overall confidence in his game, how good he's feeling in his game. when he's attacking and generating shots and having that become like a bigger part of how he's incorporating in his own game flow,

that's when he's feeling to me and playing at his best. When he's not attacking and he starts trying to figure out where the next best pass is going to be, that's a reflection he's not feeling as good about his game. Well, no, I think that's complicated. No, go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah, I'm finished. No, I was going to say the other complicating factor,

and I don't think, like, this is just kind of the reality. It ties into what we spoke about earlier. Like, because he is their primary puck carrier, there's just a certain percentage of time where he's going to have to shoot as, you know, stick on puck, right? And we talk about that all the time where he's not going to be afforded these opportunities where he gets to do a couple laps in the offensive zone and then pop up in the slot and get a shot.

Chances are he's holding on to the puck. and he's creating. And then even if he does get a shot, it's because he's held it for the previous five seconds and you got to step into one, which is high danger in terms of its place on the ice in the offensive zone, but also the other goalie is at a chance

to sort of figure out where he is and then get set for it. And that's the reality of the situation for him, and there's just so few guys who can overcome that. You can probably count on one hand, the number of guys who can consistently turn those shots into goals. And so that's like an unrealistic benchmark, I think, to compare him to.

But that's also because of, of the nature of his style of play and also the team he's on, that's kind of the majority of shots he's going to get. So I think that factors into the goal scoring in terms of you watch him shoot. It's like, all right, he's a really good shooter. Why isn't he scoring so many goals? And I think part of that is because of that. Yes, it's a good point.

I also think his, one of the big changes I think he's made this year. And it's kind of dripped in from the latter half of last year is his willingness to shoot one-timers on the power. play. He was not really that guy that was doing that very often and shooting the puck off the pass and having the success that he's had there. It's dripped into his five on five play where he'll move the puck, look to get it back. There's a great example of it there. He moves it, looks to get it back, improves the conditions and then he's shooting the puck off the pass. In this league, the ability to shoot off the pass and is where a lot of the the better middle distance scoring is going to come from.

Skating the puck into those areas is difficult. And often that will be a shot that if you shoot it intelligently, we'll have to lead to another shot, which is where the real goal will come from. So you skate the puck into middle distance. You generate your shot. Oftentimes you're going to need help to put it over the goal line with someone else. But if you're intelligent to vote where you put it,

then that's where that's probably going to come from. With Matt making a concerted effort on the power play to put himself in spots where he views himself as a primary shooter there and is willing to go in and one time the puck, that does speak to the confidence shift in his shot and that will drip into his five-on-five play. And so I think not unlike many highly skilled players, they use the power play to rebuild their feel for the game on the power. our play. Matt's no different with that. And I think that this is a this shot off the pass has been big for him this year and has accounted for a lot of his goals. But it also has a way of dripping into his willingness to be more aggressive with his shot during the five on five time, which is huge for him. One final note, I've got on his shot. And I'm curious for Dick on this. And then if you

have been anything else to wrap up this conversation is one move that I think he'd really stand to benefit from incorporating more often is I don't even know how to describe it. Maybe you have a technical term for it, but you see Troy Terry use it a lot. And I think we've spoken about him in the past. You see a lot of the great goal scorers, especially off the rush, whether it's a Philip Forsberg or David Pasternak, when they're coming in kind of off their off wing, pushing the puck into that defensive triangle at the defender and kind of last second and then change in the angle and being able to get a shot off forehand when you're coming in one-on-one

versus the defender, close up to the goalie, as opposed to. to being kind of pushed out to your backhand and then getting a lower velocity or a more kind of more manageable shot off. And that's something that he doesn't really incorporate as much yet when he gets into those positions. But I think that's something that, like, it's obviously a very tricky move to pull off. And there is a reason why it's generally the best players in the world who do so. But I think there's spots where almost that decision-making process of what type of shot do I want to select here, I think that could stand to benefit a little bit to score a few more goals off the rush, because he certainly puts himself in a position to get those opportunities at the very least.

Yeah, I mean, you mentioned Troy Terry. One of the things with Troy Terry with his shot is he uses his where he holds the puck to get inside the stick triangle of the defender to eliminate or get the defender to declare his stick. And then now he knows where it is, which gives him an opportunity to then shoot around the stick. It's a really smart way of using his shot. in an intelligent way. I love that. With Barzell,

we talked about this with Kutcherov and also a little bit I think with Eichl is he doesn't ever really he doesn't like to hold the puck behind him. So he doesn't put the puck in a dual threat position. He puts the puck in a stick handling passing position where he could pass it on the backhand.

He can pass it on the forehand. His primary stick handling or it's primary care. When he carries the puck and he's handling the puck. He likes to have it in a spot in which it's a past first more position where a guy like Kutrov, he likes it in that already loaded in a shooting position. And then from there, he starts to make his plays. Also, Pastor Knock, we talked about that with him. So that's a little bit limiting with Matt is when he has to shoot or when he wants to shoot, he often has to move it into a

shooting position to shoot it, which is also very difficult to create any deception. You know, you're not fooling anybody off the shot. So now the type of shot that you have to have, the quality of the shot, you have to have to score, you're putting so much pressure on yourself to be able to do that. So I think where he naturally likes to hold the puck makes it difficult to be a dual threat. Yeah. I mean, one hell of a player. When I was putting together the clips to send over to you and prepping for this show,

we've done a lot of awesome players this season. I think it was right up there in terms of the number of audible gasps I let out just in my living room while going through the clips because I was like, man, that was one heck of a play. And there's just little things on the margins that I think could add up to making that even more productive. And we've seen him take some of those steps this year, certainly. But I think there's even more room for growth, which is on the one hand, kind of tantalizing. on the other end, like very encouraging that he actually has that room to keep getting better and improving. So really fun stuff. Any other last notes here on Barzal before we wrap this up

and get out of here? I think one of the more fascinating stats that would love to have available to really highlight how good this guy actually is, is the pass, is the shot assist. So not an actual assist, but a shot assist. I would imagine that he is right up there, if not the league leader in shot assist. He generates what you said. He carries the mail for New York in so many ways, but there's games that I've tracked for him that I feel like he is, he probably represents over half of the shots created for the entire team in that game have come from his stick. whether he shot at himself or in most cases, his shot. So he's so, so dangerous, a player and he gifted, gifted athlete.

It's crazy how good he is. We didn't even talk about his entries. Like that to me speaks volumes for how good he is and how much depth we have to be able to talk about because he is one of the best entry players in league. Yeah, I know that Corey Snyder tracks those shot assists and he always grades out amongst the league leaders. The games I've tracked of him, he's just routinely living in that like 10 to 15 shot assist range.

And I think part of what we talked about is making those assists more high danger ones in terms of fewer ones where it's him passing up to the point for a point shot and then getting into that middle area, which they've done a much better job of and the goals are coming as a result. All right, Daryl, we're going to get out of here next week. We'll be back to do another player. We'll talk about in the meantime who we're going to do. And I'll tease it in a future show. everyone listening, thank you for listening to us.

If you enjoyed this, go check out the YouTube channel of the HockeyPedogast and watch along with us and watch all the clips that we are referencing in today's show. Join the Discord server. The Invite Lake is in the show notes. And we'll be back with Daryl next week. We'll be back with a few more episodes of the PDOCass otherwise to close out the week. Thank you for listening to us here on the Sportsnet Radio Network.