The Hockey PDOcast - Matt Duchene in Dallas, NHL's International Games, and 3-on-3 OT Solutions

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Sean Shapiro to talk about the entertainment value of the NHL's international games, the start Matt Duchene is off to in Dallas, and the league hoping to fix growing issues with the 3-on-3 overtime format. If you'd like to participate 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. 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 Filippovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name is Dimitri Filippovich and joining me on this delightful Fridays. My good buddy, Sean, what's going on, man? Not much, Ben. I was just saying before we started recording it, I was enjoying yesterday being a full day of hockey. As far as I know, it was something we got to do because the game was in Sweden. But I enjoyed the Thursday, two of course.

clock start here for me and being able to watch a game fully without having to juggle watch six or seven at once and I don't know just kind of a dream of a of a better time in the world when someday the league decides that we can do this more often and it doesn't have to be a game in Europe for us to kind of get a scheduling like that on for people who want to watch a ton of games like you and I yeah I love the matinee element of it certainly it's nice to just have hockey on throughout the day and it helped that it was a very entertaining, high scoring, fun game as well. I got a lot of complaints and comments from people being like, I wish I was actually able to watch this game.

In typical NHL fashion, they made it very difficult to actually access it and enjoy it in certain parts of the world, which is very frustrating. But yeah, I know, I enjoyed, I guess I wonder, you know, other leagues certainly pull it off, right? Baseball does it quite a bit. You mentioned, you know, European soccer and stuff like it. There's ways to make it happen. I wonder here domestically, if you were doing afternoon weekday games like that,

how that would affect both viewership and also attendance. But I imagine people would make it work, especially it became kind of a regular thing in our schedules. The way to make it happen is, and there's two partners that you'd have to get on board with it, is because they control everything now. You'd have to get Turner and ESPN on board for it, basically, is what you would need. One of the reasons the NHL schedule is about a week later and will be going forward is because of Turner and ESPN. They feel it's better for their schedule. One of the reasons that this game, that these games in Sweden don't really get all the love and play is because ESPN,

and Turner haven't really been like, ah, that's something we will want as part of our, like, they argue over who gets the winner classic, who gets the outdoor game, who gets the All-Star game, but this is not one of those things where either ESPN or Turner really pushed for nor wanted. So you'd have to get one of those networks on board. You'd have to kind of get those, one of those big TV partners,

because they really have way more power than people. I think people will realize how much power they have, but it's one of those things where you use, see how they impact playoff schedules and when it comes playoff time and they'll be like, hey, this is why we have teams playing in the central time zone starting games at 9 o'clock locally. This is, it's because of the power of ESPN and national television and Turner and everything. So we'd have to, you'd have to take, this would be on the league to get, to basically sell ESPN. Would have to be the partner of like, hey, let's get an ESPN2 game at, what do you have at 2 o'clock on Thursday?

like 2 o'clock on Thursday well let's let's sell EDSP let's get this on let's get ESPN I think would have to be the willing partner on this because Turner obviously is kind of a weird network in general where they're half sports half entertainment it's the network where you they're always on in the bar it's always on a TV in the bar but it's either the dark night rises or

an NBA or an HL game. Yeah well it sounds like they're the frozen frenzy we had a couple weeks ago rate with every team playing. I think staggered times with such a success that they will be bringing that back this season. So that's very exciting. So I think there's certainly some latitude here to experiment with this stuff.

I mentioned how it helps it. It was a very fun game. And obviously, you know, the four-diving lead for the senators, then the comeback by the Red Wings and the buzzer-beater with the Grand Slam home run by Tim Stutzler there was awesome. It was funny because I didn't even notice it in real time. I was just so captured by Stutzla's goal and like the dramatics and theatrics of it. And then obviously when you see the replays and stuff, you notice that if James Reimer didn't just actively avoid the puck,

it probably would have been a cool play, but not a highlight play because it just hits them. And in the Discord, which we'll be referencing here throughout the show, because we're going to take some questions from it, there was a good conversation gone on about it and kind of like the safe selection in terms of like, what was he trying to accomplish there, right? and there was some things being kicked around about how like, oh, well, you know, if the puck gets high to a certain level and kudos, those stuff were actually waiting for it to come down

so he didn't get called for a high stick and get it waved off. Rimer just lost it and essentially in like scramble mode, just tried to like get mode to prevent a puck, beating him along the ice. I think it looked like a reaction you or I would have, like flinching had something coming towards you, which I guess we're not used to seeing from goalies who are wearing protective equipment and in particular a helmet in this case, but it looked like he was worried about the puck hitting him,

and he just ducked to avoid it, forgetting that his job is to actually get in front of it. I know, so the did Rhymer duck discourse is pretty big, especially here you're being in Detroit right out, because there's goalie discourse is always fun anyway, and it doesn't help in Detroit that, and I mean, Alex Lyon will play today, but there's been, there's been a guy sitting right there,

where people are like, we have another guy who played in, We also wanted to be for the Florida Panthers last year. So it's very easy because there is a replacement sitting right there that you don't have to make any other moves to get into the lineup. So there's the Rimer discourse and the Vili Hussu discourse is always going to be high in Detroit right now as long as they're carrying three goalies. And I'm actually going to slightly defend Rimer for a second here because you watch the play. And he does, honestly, he's so lost on the play. So I'm defending him with the backhanded compliment at the same time.

He's so lost on the playoff, the deflection of Gostis, Spearsick has no idea where it is. The flinch to me isn't the puck, it's the baseball swing with the stick. And as someone who still poorly attempts to play beer league goalie and played, you're used to getting hit in the face with a puck. That's normal. You're like, okay, that hits me yet. But it's the baseball swing, and the depth perception, I'm not sure what exactly looked like. from a rival's point of view how close it looks like stootslosed him

but I think the flinch is more off he sees the baseball swing coming and he's reacting to the swing to the stick and that's a natural like your entire life you're used to okay I'll take that puck I'll take that but the minute that someone swings the stick at you it's just like in the Dallas game a week ago where Adam Fantilli has the natural flinch of us of a stick coming at him and he's and then it's a stick coming at you I think causes a different flinch than a puck. And so I'm going to slightly defend Reimer on the save selection

discourse there where I think it's a natural reaction to that and then he's trying to get the blocker up. But it also, he was completely lost on the play in the first place. So the foundation wasn't even there to make a save in the first place. Great play by Stutzler, but just completely lost even before Stutzel had the chance to take a swing at it. So I'm defending the, I'm defending the end, but not the buildup to it. That was about his damning the thing praise you. can get. Listen, it wasn't his fault that he got out of the way of the park. I mean, he had lost on that play way before that. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, you know, it was funny in watching the broadcast, they kept referencing, you know, they're talking about the blue line, and Shane Gossesbury

played really well, and he's been quite good this year. But there's a sort of, you mentioned the goalies and how they're carrying an extra one. They're also kind of this log jam on the blue line for Detroit. And I don't want to spend too much time on this, but I just have to bring this up because not enough people are discussing how amazing this subplot is right now, where Justin Hull was the odd man out against senators. He was a healthy scratch, right? Bet 365, a reputable awards market, currently has Justin Hull as the 18th most likely player to win the Norris trophy. What? I mentioned this previously. He's listed at 66 to 1, which implies like a 2% chance or whatever, so it's obviously very minuscule.

But he's got better odds to win it right now than like Philip Roneck and Drew Doudy. Philopronic, who's a point of game on this amazing start to the season for the Canucks on the top air with Quinn Hughes, Drew Doughty, who's second in the league in Ice Time has the reputation, of course, but is also the top defender on like a top five team in the league. And I just have to, I mean, this has to be a bit, right? I think the person setting the line here has to be like a jaded leagues fan who is just trying to poke and prod because there's obviously no basis in reality in it, but I've just brought it up and I haven't seen anyone else really mention it. So until this changes or something happens,

in fact, I hope he keeps shooting up the board. I hope the healthy scratches keep mounting, but somehow he jumps into the top 10 here because it would be a hilarious thing. But yeah, the broadcast just kept talking about how like, oh, the Red Wings have so much depth on the blue line, right? And it's like, yeah, they have technically have a lot of people who have played the defense position in the NHL before, I wouldn't necessarily, when I think of the Red Wings right now, I don't necessarily think of them as having a deep blue line in the functional sense of having a plethora of good options. Like they have people who play the position or play to do so, but very few of them can actually string together a simple pass up the ice. And that's been

an issue for this Red Wings team for many years now, right? Throughout this entire era where there's been the downturn and they've been rebuilding, it's the inability. It's the inability. to just get the puck up the eyes and break it out cleanly. And once again, I don't think that having this many players necessarily means they have a lot of depth. So I just wanted to point out that little distinction there in terms of terminology. Yeah. Well, it's the thing about the Red Wings defense is it's loaded on quote unquote, it's loaded on veteran defense. You've heard their name before.

It's like, okay. Yes. Yeah. And it's the wild thing about the Detroit defense. And it's the space where like you have, like I am a believer that it's not a bad thing to carry seven defensemen. I'm actually, I don't think it's a bad thing to rotate and figure your things out. I think that's not a bad thing. But the bigger thing that's just kind of highlights the whole what is the long term plan for Detroit, you wonder and everything like that.

with all of this. And it's even more blatant just because of the location of this game. You're playing a game in Sweden. The future of your blue line allegedly, the player you're allegedly building your future blue line and happens to be Swedish and is sitting in Grand Rapids right now,

not playing in this game, because not only do you have Ben Chirot, Justin O'Hallman, Olimata, Jeff Petrie, and obviously most side or two. And not only do you have all of them signed for this year, they're all signed for next year, too.

You've got, Sharat has two more years after this. Hall has two more years after this. I don't think the woman's a problem at all, but he's one of the older players who's on the list. Mata signed for a year after this. Petri signed for a year after this. And Gassas Bearer is your best defenseman

in the game yesterday. Knowing how Iserman has handled players, he's probably going to re-sign him anyway. So it's just, it's kind of so looking at the, like, long-term, term today versus tomorrow, the fact that they play a game in Sweden without Simon Edvincent is just a pretty blatant reminder of how much they've blocked him playing for Detroit anytime soon with a collection of guys.

You're like, okay, if I had a couple of those guys, I can live with that. But when you're stopping a guy who is in theory a franchise changing player, as people in the prospecting world claim Medvinson is, and you can agree one way or the other on that. You've you've created a problem there. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, you and I, yes, you and I, you were, you were, you were I never messaging during the game yesterday. Like, there's depth. I mean, there's a lot of, but it's, what is depth? Well, I mean, Ben Chirot and Jeff Petrie currently lead his team in five-on-five ice time break game. And yeah, yeah, it hasn't necessarily manifested itself in the results. So, sure, I was on the ice for a bunch of goals last night, or yesterday afternoon.

Um, but once he stops having. It's, um, he stops having, he has a lot of, he stopped having, like a 15% on-ice shooting percentage or whatever, the results are going to start looking wildly different and it's going to become a really big issue. And it's probably good to get ahead of it rather than waiting for that to happen. But they've kind of boxed themselves in here. And I get like Edmondson ended last year with the shoulder surgery, I believe, right? And so like easing them back in, not necessarily. I also don't like, just kind of looking at it. The other way, I don't like when organizations basically get one of everything and then just hope for the best case scenario and just presume that all of their young players are going to step in and fill that exact role of the division for them. And then when they don't or they struggle or those injuries, they're like, oh, well, who could have seen this coming?

And it's like, all right, well, you probably should have been better prepared. So I get that logic and wanting to have a player, you know, eat meaningful minutes and get a lot of reps at this age rather than playing a sixth or seventh defenseman role in the end. NHL, but I just think where the Red Wings are, it would make a lot more sense to just give him that runaway. And if he's going to make the mistakes in the meantime, so be it. That's fine. That's going to happen. But I'd rather him make those mistakes than someone like Ben Sheraud or Jeff Beatrice at this point, right? And so that's where I, uh, that's what I fall on that. Like, you're going to have Simon Evanson, if things go according to the Eiser plan, right? Simon Evanson will be part of the payoff. This group of defensemen that you have right now,

realistically you only have two of them on the seven like cider and walman are the only two that would in theory be part of the payoff i mean maybe paul is maybe hall is 18 time time wise but you're telling me that when detroit finally turns the quarter to the miraculous parade that has been meticulously planned years in the making on on this defense score are any of those guys really going to be around to be a part of it like that's what edvin said you're going to need edwin Evanson to be part of that. So I look at the Evanston handling and know the surgery and everything like that. And it's just he is, it's funny scene, because obviously I covered Jim Nill for such a long time. But Jim Nill came from the Ken Holland, Detroit overripening school of thought, right, where you've let prospects overripen. And in Dallas, they've actually kind of changed that philosophy a little bit. I mean, there's still some parts of it, but the fact that they, what they've done with Y Johnson, what they did with Thomas Harley. They've kind of gone back a little bit from pushed back a little bit on that. But in Detroit, Iserman has been big on not just overripening.

It's, it's to an extreme with Edvenson, with some of the forwards they have. I mean, it's the type of fitting where it's, Austin Zarnik, for example, is getting called up before Jonathan Berger. And I know you can make the argument, oh, this guy's a better fit for how this team plays today or whatever, but in the long run, who's part of your long-term payoff? Well, that's the thing, and that's the frustration. It's like, who cares how you're playing right now? That's not the, what's the objective? What are you trying to accomplish with this season?

And I understand they've sort of, they've forced themselves along the path of it mattering because of the contracts they've handed out, but that's, the ceiling for that is just so low compared to what it could potentially be if you kind of chose the alternative, right? So, all right, you mentioned Jim Nell there. Let's talk a little bit about our Dallas stars who are off to an 11, 3 and 1 record this season. As we mentioned last time, I believe we spoke kind of a weird schedule just because they started with so few games and then it's been kind of on and off and in spurts. But I want to talk about Matt DeShane because he has off to a phenomenal start to the year here.

And, you know, last summer, just thinking back on it, it flew a little bit under the radar, in my opinion, just because of the compressed nature of the window he was available, where it, I mean, it really was less than 24 hours where the tweet drops that he's being bought out. I believe at the same time, Blake Wheeler was in that last window before pre-agency. And then July 1st, so this is June 30th, July 1st, the signs of the stars, right? And so there wasn't necessarily this, like, long courting period or this, or the ability for us. And us to like speculate on where you go or how it's going to fit because it just happened, right? Yeah, we didn't. We didn't, we did. Yeah, there was no media cycle for every single, like, there wasn't enough time for all 32 beat writers to go and write there, oh, how about how D'S with this team. There was no, there was no like, that's what happens with most UFAs, right? It's like, oh, how do we feel if you're not in the Stanley Cup final, how do you feel June when you write about how a UFA fits? And we didn't have that with Dusha. We certainly didn't. And, you know, the stars have really benefited.

from it is remarkable to think that they're paying him $3 million this year for the one-year deal and next year the Predators are going to have him on the books at $5.55 million the year after $6.55 million in terms of cap holds those next two seasons. And he's made a real difference for this team, right? And we got a question in a Discord here from Robu that said, so Matthew Shane,

as a numbers watcher who is rarely able to actually watch the games what makes him so good this year. And certainly if you just look at any metrics really, whether it's counting stats offensively or underlying 5-1-5 metrics, they're all through the roof. And he's performed remarkably well for this team. I think there was a lot of reason for optimism when they made the move stylistically, right, and what he could provide for this team essentially stepping in as a one-for-one replacement for what Max Domi gave them down the stretch last year after they acquired him. but even if you were high on the move, I think what we've seen particularly the past, what, four or five games from him has exceeded even the wildest optimism so far. So what are we seeing

from Matt DeShane and kind of why is it all coming together for him and the stars here so far early in this union? Yeah, for me, I mean, I kind of, it's something that I expected him to fit well and he's been playing with, he's been playing with Sagan really well. And he's actually helped kind of unlock some of the stuff that Mason Marshman really struggled with last year. The thing coming in that we knew would fit was Duchenne such a good puck protector in transition. And that's kind of something we knew would fit well. It's something that that's kind of someone Marchment needed a little bit more of to play with. Obviously, you say Dachain replaced Domey, but Domey and Marchments timeline are very weird last year because of all the injuries.

So it's someone like Marshman kind of needed to play with. Well, moreso, more so bringing someone in to help get Tyler's again going. I mean, everyone's in regard, right? No, and that's, no, and that's fair. And it's someone where Duchenne's pocket protection in transition through the

neutral zone. That's something we even saw last year in Nashville. I remember my substack I went through and looked at some of the clips from some of the things he could have brought in from Nashville. He's still doing that. The thing he's doing more than I remember seeing, and this would have to, you'd have to ask someone in Nashville this. or someone who covered him before to see if he's doing it.

I don't recall him being as active in buying time for others low in the zone. That's kind of been a, and I'm not sure whether that is a change on something that he's brought back into his game that maybe I missed in the past. That could be the case, or it's something that is simply because of he looks at the team in this role and being third technically out of line. when it's listed and things like that. It's maybe it's more of a mentality thing. It's like, okay, we're a line that has to establish more zone time. And like one of the biggest differences between the stars and Vegas, like people when we watching Stars in Vegas last year,

I had all Stars fans who would ask me like, oh, why can't the Stars be like Vegas? Because Vegas would kill teams. They would suffocate teams. They would control the zone. And the Stars are a, when it comes to Puckett Protection, they don't suffocate teams. They don't hold the puck in the zone for very long.

And they don't really have players that like to do that. Like even Jamie Ben is more of, he does, has some puck protection elements. He's not, I am going to hold it down and we're going to get the cycle going for 35 minutes for 35, 35 seconds here. Dushain somehow has added that element to a Dallas line where his combination with Sagan has really freed Sagan up to be a little more free and open to do things in the offense to the zone and have time. I don't think Sagan has had in years. And that's kind of how I look at. Duchesne on, where is that, the points and everything like that, that's great. But I really look at, you watch him shift to shift, you're like, okay, he is allowing a

star's line to play with a different style than the other ones. And like the Johnston line, the Hince line, they're going to score off the rush, they're going to score in transition. The Duchay line can score in transition, but all of a sudden it becomes a different element within a game that I think is harder to prepare for now with how the stars play as a whole and like give Dushan credit for what he's doing down low. Because I didn't, either I forgot about it because he didn't do it enough in Nashville or if something he's added, I'm not sure which.

It's a great question. I hope to ask him somebody soon. But that's kind of how I look at Duchenne on that. Yeah, and he's fit in really well beyond the rush stuff, kind of what you're tapping into there in terms of the stars are always a team, in my opinion, that he's going to be fine in volume, but is trying to, it's very direct or kind of has a game bind for where they want to get the puck to and where they want to attack from, right?

And so you mentioned like especially for the top line, you get that first wave off the rush, right? Generally, Rupa Hins, do Rube Hins things. If that doesn't work out, you get the puck back, you work it up to the point, you stack up in front of the net, you shoot from the point, you try to tip it, and then you kind of do that all over again. And there's that cycle. now when you have Dushain playing the way he's playing, even I think Wyatt Johnston obviously

is a different player type, but you look at like how much he's been able to create off the cycle, for example, this season where he's got a bunch of chances in that regard and how he's able to, despite not being the biggest guy, he's always seemingly in high-d-airdry areas in front of the net and is always available as an option and gets a ton of chances doing so. it gives them more players and more avenues or outlets, I guess, to get into that middle of the ice and do what they would ideally like to do. What ideally most teams would like to do, but the stars seem to do it better than most, and kind of that's part of what makes them successful. And so it's interesting that Duchenne has a very starzy shot profile this season

in terms of like with him on the ice. They're only controlling 49.7% of the shots, so they're slightly below water. 69.1% of the high nature chances, which is very nice. 65% expected goal share. And obviously with him, say again, and Marshman on the ice, they're up 9 to 2 and have like a 67% expected goal share. And that's obviously how Rage is I'm not expecting to be hovering closer to 70% mark. But the fact that the actual quantity isn't that high, but the quality exceeds that and is very by design, kind of they're trying to accomplish a certain thing is very encouraging. And I think part of why he fits so well with like the infrastructure of what they're trying to accomplish.

Oh, for sure. And it's, it's the other thing, too, is there's a human expectation element, too, right? And I think it's something where it took Sagan, you had to Shane and Sagan, and they kind of both fit in that realm of when you do the, if you use your broadcaster voice and you're selling the game coming to town, right? Dalla the stars come to town. You're like, oh, Jason Robertson, Rope Hince, Miro Hishkin, and J. Gottinger, maybe you talk about Joe Bills. like Tyler Sagan and Matt Duchenne aren't in the top five names listed anymore. And I think that's a space where they're both kind of in that career arc where I think Sagan has had that before and it's kind of in coming off the years of kind of dealing with some injury stuff. It's finally healthy. A, that's a big one. But I think Dushan, there's a real nice kind of soft landing of it reminds me of I remember talking to Jason Speza and before he kind of fell off before you're going to off in his last couple of years in Dallas. I remember talking to him about kind of the luxury of playing in Dallas where he was able to make mistakes in Dallas that got missed or even perceived mistakes in Dallas that got missed that he didn't have when he was playing in Ottawa. And the

kind of the ability to, you can be going through a cold stretch in Dallas. And I guess DeShane probably could have had this in Nashville too, but when you're making the big money. there's the ability to kind of go through a cold stretch and not have every single person, not have your waiter ask you about it. But that's one of those things that like, I think Dushain is really enjoying that and adding, added in the team hierarchy where he's only a $3 million guy. He doesn't have to be, he doesn't have to be an $8 million man. He can be a $3 million guy. And it's, I'm sure that's incredibly freeing. It is.

It is. Yeah. Yeah, it is both in terms of pay structure and also in terms of, I guess, line up a lot, but now I will say Jason Roberts, since the only forward currently on the stars, it's playing more than him, and he leads the team with a 5-1-5 points. And so part of that, I'm sure, is they're playing so well that they're just getting them out there as much as possible, right? And I imagine as the season goes along, I wouldn't necessarily expect him to be second on the team in forward usage in that regard. But, yeah, certainly while it's working, um, squeeze the most that you can out of it. And that's been a great fit. And, and, you know,

The rush element still is there where he's gotten, I think, at least three or four now that I've counted, breakaways or kind of two-hour ones that he was able to create. He had that just scintillating rush the other night in their most recent game against the coyotes where it was very vintage. He puts on a series of moves and gets to the net and doesn't wind up scoring, but it was a very unique type of play that we've become accustomed to from him, especially in his prime. And so there's that. I think he leads the team with 33 passes into the slot, which kind of feeds into that high danger statistic that I mentioned earlier.

So yeah, it's all working for them. Now, you know, they're shooting 16% with them on the ice and have a 9.43 save percentage. So things are looking really good. And I imagine the goal share itself will probably come down a little bit as the season goes along. But this is all just kind of found money at this point, right? And so I guess it's a another win for our pal Jim Nill here, being able to go out and add a guy like this. who fits in so so beautifully with what they're trying to do. And yeah, I guess it helps when you have that,

when you have all those other like fundamental pieces already in place, it makes it a lot easier to go out shopping in this bin and bring guys in and get that out of them as opposed to, if you had to bring in Matt Duchyne as an $8 million player or whatever and ask him to play a top wide role all of a sudden, that's entirely entirely different landscape for everyone involved. Jim Nell loves shopping off of bought out players more than anyone. Like any time a player gets bought out, like if you want to talk about odds makers,

whoever's putting Justin a Hall at 16th best to win the Norris or whatever. Like, hey, it's only 18th. Let's not get too crazy. It's 18. Like, if any player they get bought out, I could immediately give you top five odds that Dallas will sign a bought out player. Jim, Jim, I mean, across the central, the starters have between the Souter D. Hill and between to shade right now, every divisional game for Dallas. It almost feels like they're playing against someone. They're playing against a team who's helping pay, keeping their salary down this year.

Jim knows like me. He's just going to go into the thrift shop, getting some vintage vines, some used cool fleeces and sports t-shirts. It's, you know, I can relate to that. It's smart. It's very crafty by Jim. All right, John, let's take our break here. And then we come back. I do want to talk about one more stars thing.

And then we're going to move on and cover some other stuff around the league. First, let's do our break. You're listening to the HockeyPedio cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right, we're back here in the HockeyPedocast with Sean Shapiro. Sean, while we're on the topic of the Dallas Stars, I wanted to quickly talk about Wyatt Johnson as well. You wrote about him recently, and we've spoken quite a bit about him over the past calendar a year or so on the show, but really strong week from him, you know, started it with,

I believe that came in Winnipeg where he sort of took it over. And in particular, you know, tying into the exchange conversation. Those two have found a really nice wave length to both operate on together on that second unit power play, which was a big weakness for this team last year where their first unit was just so strong and that's great. But then part of it was like you're bringing Ryan Suter out there on the second unit and it was just like it was basically a black hole offensively. All of a sudden now it's just giving them different wrinkles and different options and ways to to beat you. And Johnston, you know, this isn't new because even as a teenage rookie last year, I thought his game was so

polished and refined and just like ready made for the league but you're seeing him take that to an even higher level this year and every time i watch him i'm just i'm just blown away he feels like the he never makes a mistake he's always in the right spot and it's kind of difficult to like i couldn't even really i don't know if i could do a one of those full deep dives with darrell belfry where we watch all of his shifts and talk about it because i'm sure darrell could uh could articulate it better than i could but i don't even know if i could necessarily pinpoint, like, specific things. It's like, it's like a combination of doing seven things really well in a subtle way that add up to the greater hole here with Wyatt Johnson,

and he just strings together so many of those sequences over the course of a game. Yeah, and it's funny. As he said, I wrote a piece about him this week, and it's kind of one of those looking at things. It's, you talk about the stars and everyone knows the It's hard to want, I'm sure, I don't know if they've gone to broadcast this in his career where someone hasn't brought up that he lives with Joe Pavelsky. Like that's, that's kind of one of those stories that will follow him and be around him forever. It's just like, Prazby lived with the mutual like Johnson, Pavelsky. But it's how he ended up in Dallas is kind of one of those interesting stories too, because it was, this is the stuff he did at the U18 worlds when they were in 2021. and this is the kind of things that the stars,

the reason they picked him in the first route. And no one saw Johnston play during the 2020-21 season. The OHL didn't play because of COVID. So his only games were during, were the seven or eight games at the under 18 worlds, which ironically enough, the stars in Texas had lacks COVID restrictions. So they stepped up and they were able to host the event

in their own practice facility. and Jim Nill and all of his scouts and the star I remember spending a couple days at that tournament. The stars obviously had more than anyone else watching that tournament. And obviously, Shane Wright and Connor Bidard and those were the big names. But Wyatt Johnson was the third line center for Team Canada who was stringing things together left or right

and now, lo and behold, three years later he's doing it for the NHL team. And it's interesting looking at that. That's why the stars took him in the first. first round. It's one of the reasons he didn't have those gaudy numbers in his draft here. That's why he wasn't at top, like he had the gaudy numbers the next year in Windsor after he had been drafted. But it's those little things, just stringing everything together. And it's kind of what the star's plan has been with him from the beginning since kind of the first time they saw him play

as a 17-year-old. And it's, as you said, your buddy, Elfrey can probably put together a better terminology for us, but for me, watching him play, it's very, it's like a forward version of a great defenseman where you're like, there's no mistakes. He controls flow of the game. And I can't really describe it great. Just please watch him play. Yeah, I mean, 38 goal pace, 71 point pace. He's got 31 scoring chances. The season of score logic, 14 off the rush 17 via the cycle, which I referenced earlier. So nice kind of versatility.

in that regard and feeds into exactly, much like D'Shea, what the stars are trying to accomplish offensively. And yeah, it's just he lives in those high danger areas. He's one of those players regardless of how well he's covered, he's always kind of open. You can't really throw him a bad pass because even if there's someone on him, he'll find a way at the last second, get open, receive the puck and get a shot off on net. And so it's been really fun to watch him yet again this year. And this guy of the limit is certainly for him. I think with even with, you know, better usage where he's got a nice connection with Ben and the Donov, but playing that second unit power play and stuff, like for him to be producing at this level while still not necessarily

having like a full-time completely just unchained scoring role. Like it's still somewhat mitigated by that is remarkable. And so everyone should be really excited about him. And I wanted to shout out him out here as well. And, and his, long term, and his long term, like, you talk about like his long term projection, too. At some point, and you and I have talked about Joe Podelski, at some point, Father Time will eventually call Joe Podelski's name. It won't, it'll probably still be like a decade from now, but at some point it will happen and someone will have to play with Robertson and hits. And you talk about a, a, you talk about just a long term spot where you think about him playing with those guys and how his game continues to evolve and mesh. You think about where these counting numbers where it could be for Johnson in a couple years. And you're like, that could be something to watch. I thought that's a good point. I didn't think that's where you were taking that.

I thought you're going to say at some point, you figure Joe Pavolski will be living at Wyatt Johnson's house. That's the right of passage. Yeah. It's the, it's the unwritten agreement where Pavelsky just has told why you'll always have keys. But little does he know the first time why? buys a house, Joe's going to be like, oh, I get keys too. Yeah. Yeah, at some point, the shoe will be on the other foot. You have to take care of me. Um, okay, anything else on on Yon Johnson and the stars or you want to move on to a three on three overtime conversation.

Yeah. Let's chat three on three and three. All right. So this was a big, I guess it was it's, it's, uh, times all kind of, uh, um, you know, together here, but it was Monday or Tuesday, right? Whatever it was. Oh, it feels like a lifetime ago now. But yes, um, haven't really spoken about it much on the show yet this week. So, Let's get into it here. So the conversation of potential changes and kind of tinkering with the rules in overtime to try to make three-on-three overtime great again, right? To bring it back to its peak sort of unfiltered form from the early stages back in 2015-16 where no one really knew how to stop it or devise game plans to slow stuff down. So teams are just going full blast and trading chances and we're getting quick finishes and stuff. And I think if you watch the right, like this not necessarily catch all in terms of,

I think some teams still play it in a fun way. But for the most part, I think coaches, as we would have expected, have found a workaround if they feel like they're at a talent deficit against their opponent or, you know, they might be particularly good in the shootout, let's say, or they're just kind of trying to string the game along and not necessarily lose it early in overtime and try to get it to a shootout. There's very easy ways to do so, right? just kind of working that possession game and looping back, not necessarily trying to even probe

and attack. You half-heartedly go. It doesn't work out. All right, you bring it back, change. Let's do it all over again. All of a sudden, next thing you look up and 90 seconds went off the board. And so the league is, I think, smart to try to change that because three-on-through overtime is really fun in theory, and people love it. It hasn't necessarily been that recently. So I don't know how you feel about those and kind of what changes you would like to see instituted, but I do think it makes sense because if you're still picturing three-on-three as that thing it once used to be, it isn't necessarily that anymore. So like three-on-three overtime is, it's like the extreme sport of like skydiving.

So it's like a used to be first came into the league, and I'm not sure what they actually call that, but there's that, those stunts that people sometimes do or like they skydive without a parachute and there's like a big net on the ground. And they just have to, and you have to hit that net. And that's what three on three overtime used to be like, okay, it's skydiving without a parachute. You better hit the net. Otherwise, disaster is going to be disastrous because it's going to be going the other way. And now basically it's like all of a sudden, the skydiving competition without a parachute,

all of a sudden you've got coaches who stepped on the plane and just started handing guys parachutes. Like, that's pretty much what happened to three on three overtime. And I, it's weird. It's like I don't like it. I don't like watching the circle back. I know there's been people have floated the idea of doing kind of that half court rule and everything like that. And I don't know if you watched any of that three on three league in the summer that that's played the three ice league. And I've watched a couple of those games here and there.

And they have that half court three on three rule. And I don't know if that's the fix because it doesn't that three on three, the half court rule, it doesn't create better quality chances. It just creates an additional shift. shot and it actually leads to more whistles almost because sometimes teams will just start getting and now those are that the three ice league is nowhere near the quality of financial players so maybe there's a different modifying scale with with the top players in the world but in that league there's too many times where it's like this is just a bad it just leads to a low danger shot because it's better to get a shot on that than turn the puck over and it leads to more whistle so

I don't know if the like the half ice rule is one I'd love to see like tested by like the NHL. Like, it's one I'd love to see it tested by, by higher, by higher talent players. I also, I also wonder if you can even change, find a in-game rule change that coaches won't adjust to. Like, at the end of the day for me, the biggest way I think you change coach mentality is you have to change something that's completely out of their control and that's the point system. Like if all of a sudden, because coach's jobs is to bank points, coaches aren't, the job isn't to win games, the job is to bank points because points is how you get into playoffs. So it's the classic cross-conference game. It's two-two game. It could be really exciting. At that point,

minute 55, if the Knucks are playing the hurricanes, they're both thrilled if that game goes to overtime. They both got a point. And I think it goes back to kind of more of changing the things outside their control. If you were to, let's just have like, I would be all abolishing the shootout and just ending the game in a tie. Like I think that would actually help fix overtime because all of a sudden it would be like, oh, well, there's no point available if you don't win in this overtime. And going even further of, hey, let's not even get a, you're, there's, like, I would, I would be all aboard for, you can give me back on track in a second here.

I think every game should be worth three points. You win in regulation, you get three points. You win in overtime, you get two points. If neither team wins, you each get one point. So I what about the the shock clock I guess just thinking about it that probably wouldn't I like the idea of it but in terms of execution it probably would feed into what you're saying which is how do you enforce that it would probably just result in more stoppages and face offs right it's like because what happens if you don't if the shock lock runs out and you get a violation you don't get a shot off that means you stop the play right and so that's not what we want we want to keep this as free flowing and moving forward as we can't. It's also like, because the shot clock, here's the scenario in my head that plays out of a shock clock. The shot clock would be you would get a team. There would be a buildup.

Like you'd get a rush. You'd get a two-on-one. And there would be a guy like, and you would have a two-on-one. It'd be a great, great chance for a two-on-one. And because there's, because the guy, the defenders looked up at the shot clock and saw there's only one second left on the shot clock, he just completely collapses to take the pass away. take the pass away, goalie is square, it's an easier defense to play. I think the shot clock gives actually

the defensive team another tool. Yeah, you're probably right, because you're just playing to literally run the clock out in opposed to trying to. Yeah, yeah, you're just, you're just, it's just like how you can, like how, if within, in a basketball game,

if the shot clock's down to two seconds or whatever, you know the team has to shoot. You can be, the defense is at an advantage at that point. I think a shot clock gives defense, more of an advantage to stifle things more. Yeah, Dom had this in a recent piece of the athletic where shots have gone down, shots per hour,

and three-unthreat overtime have gone down from 74 per hour to 66 this season from last year, and goals have dipped down at 10.8 per hour, which is like about two fewer for every 60 minutes with thrown-threat-over time than we were previously getting last year. And so I think that kind of quantifies what we're talking about here, think why you want to experiment with stuff. I'm willing to embrace anything because honestly, as much as I love three on three over time, it's not really hockey. Like, it's not a proxy for

anything else that happens over the course of a game. And so you can't really draw the line here and start to get sanctimodious about like, oh, well, this is going to be too gimmicky. It's like, it's three on three over time. And we're playing it for a short period of time. Like, anything is on the table, in my opinion. And we probably want to experiment with some of this stuff. HL before you actually bring it out into meaningful NHL games, but I'm all for it. And I think the league needs to do something because it's gotten a bit too easy to slow it down. And I remember, like, you still get one of these games every once or a while where the teams are just trading back and forth chances. And it almost, like, draws you back in and you just want so much more of it.

I wonder if the solution would be you just extended maybe, like seven minutes, eight minutes, 10 minutes. And if you don't win in the overtime, you lose. Because what we need to do here, I think the best possible incentivization is you hit the nail in the head to get to the coaches. It's not to get to the players, right? It's not to change the way the game is played. It's to force tactics to be more aggressive. And so in this case, if you incentivize teams and force their hand into extreme measures to try to win, I think that's going to lead to the desired effect of what we're looking to accomplish

with all these little tinkering things that either have flaws of their own or won't actually accomplish what we're striving for. I have a dumb idea just now. Literally just came into my head and coaches will be able to exploit it. But here's an idea. We keep the shootout. But you get the amount of shots in the shootout that you had in three on three. So if you go and you don't score, you have to shoot a team 10-0 in a shootout and

in three-on-three overtime, but don't score. You get 10 shots in the shootout and they get zero. No one wins them in the shootout, it's still a tie. I know coachism will already figure out a way to exploit it. Yeah, everyone's going to start playing with the Carolina Hurricanes. We don't want that. I don't need teams spamming low-percentage shots to try to get more shootout attempts down the road. I think honestly, I think the point structure and how you get rewarded based on how the game ends needs to change,

because that's the only thing that's going to fundamentally force teams to try harder. and be more aggressive about finishing it, right? It's like, and I think five minutes is too short if you're doing that. But if you stretch it out a bit further, all of a sudden, I think we know that the longer it goes in that regard, the more likely you're going to have a finish. And we need some sort of finish. I don't like the tie.

I like having some sort of resolution, not even for like, oh, you got to go home and you know who won or lost, but I just like, I need there to be a reason for teams to try to differentiate themselves and just like a bunch of, a bunch of ties and a bunch of teams just getting one point and kicking the ball down the road in terms of the standings where it just constantly stagnates and stays the same is not it. I think getting higher, more like variability and fluctuations in terms of big point outputs for games is probably the way that you go about it.

So I don't know what the right formula or recipe is in terms of the actual minutes and point totals and everything, but I think that's probably more likely now far too exotic for the NHL. I'm not expecting that by any means. It'll probably be more half measures, as we've seen speculated, but it'd be fun to think about. Well, I mean, if the NHL took our ideas, we would have, we would now, we would now know it would be Philippronic in the Alstaffir game shooting against whoever's, whoever's last in league safe percentage. So our ideas are sometimes too extreme anyway. No.

Well, that's one of our better ideas. Yeah, that is one of our better ideas. these incorporated. All right, Sean, we're going to get out of here. I'm going to let you go. Let you plug some stuff here on the way out. Either tell the listeners about either stuff that you've been putting out recently or upcoming stories that they can keep an eye out for.

Yeah, a couple of friends. First off, over our stopover, AP Rinkside, some fun stuff there lately. Some more stuff coming there this week. I drove up to Saginaw. earlier this week with the NHL basically all moving to Sweden in the Michigan area. And obviously, they got a couple. So if you're in the prospecting world, I went and did some human stories that are coming out soon here on Zane Baraka, Michael Misa, that are coming out soon on over at a DEP ring side.

And then I'm actually, the other thing I'm looking forward to coming up as well, just schedule works out pretty well of next week, kind of nice little matinee or not matinee, deep night before Thanksgiving, Columbus and Chicago play and then the week after going to have got J.D. Our pal J.D. to fund a trip to Denver for me.

So to go watch Leo Carlson play. So nice kind of looking at where we are six, seven months after they've been drafted on kind of one, two, and three and see where and everything is going and kind of getting to see all those guys kind of fun thing.

And then, of course, you like the Stars conversation, like the Red Wings conversation, do a lot of that. stuff over the substack too. Awesome, man. Well, looking forward to all of that. We've referenced the Discord in today's chat, right?

We took that question, the Matt DeShane one, talked about the, the Rimer stuff. You're in there. I'm in there. A bunch of other people who regularly appear on the show are in there. A lot of listeners are in there as well. It's percolating, it's humming. It's fun. There's a lot of good conversation in there.

We're going to be using it for future mailbags and topic ideas and stuff like that and soliciting questions there. So if you're not in there yet, the link is in the show notes. I highly recommend that you can join the conversation. Or you can just lurk and just see what people are saying, but I just still feel like you're part of the community, whatever your cup of tea is. And we're going to keep that thing growing, hopefully.

And so, yeah, looking forward to that. Sean, this is a blast. I'm going to let you go here, and we're going to reconvene with you shortly, I'm sure. Thank you for listening to us. And we'll be back with plenty more of the HockeyPedio cast here on the Sports Night Radio Network.