The Hockey PDOcast - Nico Hischier, The New Look Capitals, and East vs West

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Thomas Drance to go through the biggest stories from this past week of NHL hockey. Topics include Nico Hischier’s strong start, the high flying Capitals offense, Barkov’s triumphant return home, and a developing imbalance between the two conferences. 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 Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitri Filippovich and joining me for our special Sunday edition of the show. Once again, is my good buddy Thomas Trans. Tom. Tom, what's going on, man? Not much, buddy.

I've been enjoying another fun week of hockey across the league, tracking a bunch of storylines, enjoying the games I've been watching a lot. Yep. So really excited to do this again with you. as we'll do every week all year long. You know what? People are starting to catch on to the hype. They're hopping on the bandwagon.

The PioCast Discord has been lighting up with people saying they're starting to actually look forward to this as part of their routine starting their weeks. And that's very satisfying to us because that was the exact intention of doing these shows. And that's how I feel doing it, my friend. So here's the topic rundown for today. We're going to talk about Nico Hissier.

We're going to talk about the Caps. We're going to talk about a little bit of East-West. We're going to talk about the Finland series. We saw overseas with the Pan-Echoice. with the Panthers playing the stars. And then a little bit of what to look forward to next week as well as part of our sort of recap slash preview of the week that was. Let's start with Nico Hishier as our sort of lead topic here today, Tom, because we decided

we wanted to do this one after we watched that Devil's Canucks game earlier this week where he really just ran a roughshod over Vancouver Canucksie. It wasn't necessarily isolated to just him because it was a really one-sided beatdown. We don't necessarily have to like talk about the intricacies of that game. specifically because I had our pal Harmon Dial on the show Friday, and we sort of talked about the Canucks struggles against both the devils and the hurricanes. But I really wanted to highlight his year here because he's up to now, 10 goals in 14 games.

He's killing it in this sort of motion-based power play. The Devils have been running as sort of the interior bumper guy who's sort of using that release in front of the net. Four of his five assists have been primary, six penalties drawn for zero taken this season with him on the ice of 515, to Devils at 55% of the shots, 58.3% of the high danger chances. Obviously, it's still early in the season. Maybe if we have time later today, we can do our sort of end of the first month awards. And in the Selke, as long as Alexander Barkov is alive, he's always going to be the frontrunner, in my opinion, and he's still having those types of impacts. But I think his year is sort of staking his claim

to the top of that category with this start. And I love what I'm seeing from him, right? Like so decisive, so involved, and really just crushing it. Like if that Canucks game, we can talk about the goals he sort of set up and scored himself, but I love what I'm seeing from him. What are your thoughts on sort of what you're seeing from his year so far and kind of his, I guess, role within not only this devil's team, but also just kind of like this concept of two-way centers that we're seeing in the league right now. Well, yeah, he came in and through an absolute Hadoquin at

Vancouver's forward group. You know, the Canucks with Ulius Pedersen and J.T. Miller is a one-two punch. You know, it's pretty rare that we see them look, regardless of how Pedersen's playing, because anyone listening from Vancouver is like, well, I don't that rare. It's more of a one-two jab right now. It's one-two jab at the moment.

Yes. I think that's fair to say. But what he sure was able to do against the top end of Vancouver's lineup was impressive. You know, we don't see Vancouver's best players outclassed that significantly by star players. And we rarely see games this season anyway, where Quinn Hughes isn't the most dominant and impactful player on the ice.

Like the two guys who've leapt over that bar in Connects games this season are Nikita Kutrov and Nico Hescher. Yep. So he's, I think, absolutely coming into his own a little bit. the production catching up to what he's been able to do as a two-way player this season is sort of welcome. It feels like for this class of, I think we're talking about an elite two-way centerman, but I don't think he's discussed in that manner very often. He's not usually at the tail end or like even in the honorable mentions list of a list of top 10 NHL

centerman, but if you did expand it to 15, he'd be a mainstay. And it's really the lack of production and the fact that Jack Hughes, you know, garner so much oxygen that sort of kept him behind it. I also think it's because the devil's just haven't sustained team success. Yes. But it feels like if he can get the production up, whether it's sustainable or not, right? If we're talking about a guy who hits 30 goals this season, if we're talking about a guy who hits 80 points this season, and does all the Niko Heeshire stuff, and does it for a team that's got a winning record that's at the top of their division that looks like a genuine contender. by the time we get to the trade deadline and into the playoffs,

I think that's the sort of thing that can elevate where he sits in the league-wide discussion. Not dissimilar, actually, from how Jack's brother with Quinn Hughes, how he sort of really entered the conversation last season, once the team started winning and once his production, sustainable or not, took that sort of big step forward. And what really stuck out to me in watching that game

we're sort of referencing here wasn't just the fact that he directly created three goals, but it was the fashion in which he did it. And you sort of see that, right? Like it starts in his zone with really strong defensive plays where he's just winning battles, kind of recovering possession, and then leading and fueling that rush attack for the devils. On the P.K, he had the steal and then kind of like the, I think, very intentional sort of shot pass off the pads that wound up being scored on the rebound.

And then if you go back and watch the third goal he set up, not only does he sort of initiate the action from his own zone. But then he does one of my favorite moves. And this is like Pavel Datsuk 101. You see Leon Dreisaitel do it quite a bit where you get involved as leading the rush and then you take away the defender's stick so that one of your teammates can then make a play where that otherwise would have been. And that's what he did in neutralizing Tyler Myers, where he sort of is the first man in. He lifts Myers' stick so that he can't really get in the lane. And obviously Myers has such a long sort of eliminating stick and otherwise would have caused the problem and Timo Meyer is essentially able to step in to a very dangerous risk shot which he

converts on and those little details really get me going. The mark of respect that stood out to me in that game was the fact that that first goal gets scored against Myers and Susie, right? The Myers-Susie pair and the second goal that he manufactures gets scored against the Myers and Susie pair. And then the third goal comes against the Vancouver or was it a power? Power play goal. Yeah.

That was a PK. PK goal, right. And then he saw a steady diet of Quinn Hughes for the rest of the night. Yes. So the Canucks honestly ended up getting chased in that game from their preferred matchup, which was, hey, Nico Heeshire's their second line center. We'll put our second pair against them. He torched that matchup so significantly that the Canucks had to reshuffle their deck.

And then what happened in the second half of the game? Jack Hughes goes nuke. Yep. Right? So it's a real pick your poison sort of thing that the devil devils have going. And then to add to it, just because they can both do it at warp speed, I don't think diminishes the stylistic gap between Heeshire and Jack Hughes, right? So it does feel like, at least in the early going, the devils have, you know, both the fastball and the changeup,

which does make them a nightmare matchup. I think you saw it in that Vancouver game where the Canucks literally had to rethink their plans on the fly and the moment they did, the devil's continued to sort of pounce on their secondary options. And I think the Devils, much like most teams in today's game, it's not necessarily about for the forwards that is, not like obviously you're going to talk about them within sort of the structure of a line, right, in terms of like the three guys we're playing together.

But I think they're looking for sort of pairs that they can throw at teams, right? And we know that Hughes and Brat and with the electricity they have and that dynamic are probably going to be sticking together. I think for the Devils, it's been about finding the guy who can sort of work off of his shear there. and I think it really helps at Dawson Mercer, who also had a phenomenal game in Vancouver, looks like he's back to the version that we fell in love with two years ago, where he was, like, so aggressive and tenacious and just tracking pucks down,

and just being sort of a nightmare to play against. And that's exactly, yeah, Dawson Mercer. And that's what he was back to doing here as well. So I think that's a great revelation for them. That's huge. I don't know if you have any other sort of notes on either his shear or the devils while we're on them here, or if we want to move on to the next topic in our life. Yeah, I think the only other sort of element that stuck out to me watching that team play was just their defensive game looked a lot more mature.

Now, I know they also gave up three goals against to the Calgary Flames, but it did feel to me like an awful lot more like what it did sort of that first Lindy Rough season as opposed to last year. It felt like from the hash marks down, they were winning a ton more battles. It looked to me like Luke Hughes was better in that area. And it looked to me like the additions of Brett Pesci and Jonathan Kovacev, obviously Jonathan Kosevich, made a huge difference. Like I do think that this team has just a little bit more gumption. There's more times in sort of two areas where you notice it a lot. I think you notice on exits along the wall where, you know, whether it's Tim O'Meyer getting

more comfortable, whether it's the addition of guys like Paul Cotter, right? Even, even Mercer being back on the wing and sort of playing that relentless style. There had been games in the past where it felt like I'd watch them and in that area of the ice trying to engineer those exits and trying to connect play and get moving vertically the way that they do. It looked like they were at a size disadvantage frequently as sort of the pressure turned up just along sort of the defensive blue. it felt like they had enough size, enough sort of gumption to withstand that. And in addition to the fact that their defenders just looked so much more solid, so much more physical, so much more engaged from the hash marks down,

I think if they're able to combine so much of what the devils do well in terms of the vertical attacking pyrotechnics and speed game with that sort of more like robust two-way game, man, I think they could be a real problem. Well, it's easy to become just completely, like, enamoring a tunnel vision for the skill plays offensively. And certainly there's an element of that where, like, they're going to need that. But I think what made them special two years ago, and especially you go back and watch the end of that Rangers series where they kind of persevered and finally were able to come out ahead. It was just using, like, that pace pushing defensively to make you uncomfortable with the puck force turnovers and then just drag you into the deep end and sort of force you to play at their pace, which very few teams can across the lineup. And so I think that's really encouraging that we've seen that so far.

Niko Hishir is the driver of that in so many ways. And so we wanted to start off today by giving him some love on that. And I just think he's going to elevate his place in the conversation. That this is, I want to buy high on Niko Hesher so far. Yep. The Washington Capitals, who are often 8 and 2 start now, as we're recording, they're playing the Carolina Hurricanes. But in my notes here before that game,

8 and 2 record plus 14 goal differential at 515, which is second behind just the Minnesota Wildland. the league. They've already beaten the Rangers, the aforementioned devils, the Golden Knights, the Stars. They've actually played a pretty tough schedule here up until a couple wins against Columbus and Montreal. They play this game on Saturday afternoon where they just blitz the Blue Jackets. Now the Blue Jackets were on the second of a back-to-back and had to like travel to get there, but they scored five goals on their first seven shots. And the reason why I wanted to highlight them here and had them second on our docket is because I believe two weeks ago when you and I were talking.

We sort of at least briefly mentioned the caps, and we were like, they're just playing much differently than they played last year, regardless of the results. They're generating so much more offensively, both in terms of shots, high-d-injured chances, and goals, and this is some in the track for us. Now, two weeks later, they've continued that. They have 44 goals in 10 games at 5-on-5, their first in goal rate, second and high-d-injury chances, third and expected goals. And this is a team that was 28th in scoring last season. And you look up and down the lineup, and especially in the top. top two lines. There's obviously some entrenched names there that people are familiar with, but a lot of the success is being driven by guys like Alexi Proto, who I really want to

shout out here today. And then Connor McMichael on the second line as well, who have really taken massive steps in their development. And both those lines are firing on all cylinders. And then you've got Nick Dowd, who theoretically is on whatever third and fourth line, but he actually leads the team in five-on-five usage amongst forwards. And despite starting like 15% or whatever of his shifts in the, or sorry, he has a 15% offensive zone start rate, like they're just using them exclusively in their own zone. He's still crushing it and moving the needle as well. So I love this team and the way they've been playing so far. I think it's impossible not to be excited about it. I know there's some inflated things

with percentages and all that. As I said, they just came off a game where they scored five goals on seven shots to start off and that's obviously not going to continue. But they're throwing so many different looks and waves of offense at you. And I really love this Capitals team. There are a ton of fun. There are a ton of fun right now. The protist shift getting the stick from the referee didn't quite score, but, or the referee from the trainer on the bench. That'd be amazing if the referee was like, I recognize this guy's game and appreciate it so much.

I'm going to help him out here. Let me get you a new stick. Yeah. The way that he was able to control the puck without his stick to on that rush sequence, the turnover that he forth. I mean, the whole thing was freakish, right? true, like a truly rare play, the sort of special thing that you usually only see from those, you know, 10 or 12 players on the planet who are worth the price of admission on an every night basis. It was eye-opening to say the least. Um, you know, look, this, this is sort of, and we'll come back to the East versus West thing a little bit more later, but this Capitals team, you know, I think we expect that at the end, of the year, they're going to be in tough to make the playoffs and they'll sort of be in that

mix. But it does really feel to me like they'd be a team capable of maybe not challenging Winnipeg, but challenging just about everyone else in the West to win a division, right? I mean, I honestly think they're, in the east they might be a fringe playoff team. In the west, they'd be a safe playoff team and maybe even a like mid-tier division contender. That's sort of how high I am on what we're seeing out of them. You mentioned that they're losing to the hurricanes. I also saw the hurricanes play live this week in Vancouver and been watching them since they left as well. Their barnstorming tour of Western Canada, I think, deserves mention, and I think we should dwell on it. In particular, this does not look like a Hurricanes team that's playing,

you know, the brand of Hurricanes hockey that we've so often panned on this very program. They are getting after it off the rush. And there's still an element to which you look at the lineup on paper and you're like, Eric Robinson on the top line, huh? Jack Roslovich in the top six, huh?

Playing matchup minutes, sure. Yeah, Jack Roslovick. We all knew it would happen. But the speed with which they're attacking, the rush attack that they're able to manufacture at the moment, I mean, they skated the Canucks off their own sheet. They've done the same to basically everybody they saw at West.

It was wild to watch it unfold. I'm not saying it's an evolution yet, right? I mean, one of the things that I always find fascinating about rush attacking is it's not something that you directly control as a team, right? As much as you want to create a system that permits it or helps drive rush chances, right? that the very notion of what what's required to create a rush attack. It's like the puck needs to be

in your end of the rank, in your defensive end. And that doesn't happen as often to Carolina as it does to everyone else. Then something needs to go wrong. You need someone to be at least a little bit out of position. And you need to string together usually multiple high skilled touches,

often in dangerous areas of the ice, to actually spring it. So much has to go right to create rush opportunities. So maybe this isn't, something that the Carolina Hurricanes will sustain over time. But it looks like they are generating vertical attacking opportunities at a rate we've never seen from this group before. Well, let me tell you, Spor Logic has them at 7.3 rush chances per game, which is top five

in the league. And that is sort of a continuation of the way they played in the second half of last year after acquiring Jake Gensel and sort of clearly reflecting like a philosophical change in terms of the way they want to attack. And so that is incredibly exciting. You're right. They've been blitzing teams with that. They've been playing remarkably well. And I'm here to say, like, I'm back in. Nice. Let's go. Obviously, I still believe.

Mediocast history. I still believe that for them to reach whatever final form and for me to be more confident they'll actually get over the hump in the playoffs, they need to be more aggressive about identifying and acquiring talent at this deadline. Now, they're very well positioned to do so because they have certainly the prospect and pick capital that we've seen teams cherish. They have a lot of upcoming flexibility with so much money coming off their books this offseason on guys who aren't necessarily even core members so they can sort of work with that. And yeah, they just clearly showed a willingness at least to acquire and spend on a rental player

to try and go for a playoff push last year. So I think that's very exciting. And so, yeah, I'm in on this team. I really like what I see from them. And they're just a nightmare to play against this season. Like, I think watching them in that game against the Bruins, I know the Bruins have bounced back here recently with a couple games, but they caught the Bruins at their sort of nadir in terms of their struggles.

And that is such a bad position for any team to be in. It's like, all right, we're struggling and we're not confident with our game and, like, our movement with the puck. And then we have to play the Hurricanes. And they're like, we're just going to absolutely punish you and make it so much worse in every single facet. And so, yeah, I mean, the Hurricanes are playing remarkable hockey right now. The stat that I saw that the Bruins didn't have a five-on-five shift until it was already six-two. A five-on-five shot?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was tough. Yeah. How concerned are you about the Bruins? Not to, not to, I know we've got other stuff to run through, but I'm curious to get your thoughts on whether or not, you know, my obsession with Bruins' black magic must be re-evaluated in light of their poor form to begin the year. Yeah. I mean, listen, they've bounced back here with a couple good games, as I said.

And so I think that's sort of righted the ship a little bit. I think the underlying issues with this team in terms of a clear lack of top-end talent, right? Like they're going to need a ton from David Pasnack to essentially do everything for them offensively. The fact that they've relied on what was initially their fourth line and they've had to move those guys up further the depth chart because they've been the only ones contributing is both encouraging because it's like, all right, well, they're getting depth scoring. They're revitalizing that black magic you like to talk about in terms of. of getting scoring from guys than no one expected heading into the season. Yep.

Yet also, it's concerning because that's probably not something that you can necessarily rely on as like, this is just going to drive us the rest of the season. And I want to put a pin in that sort of segment here because once you talk about East West, I have a little note on that. I don't want to move too far away from the capitals yet, though, because I have a few more notes on them,

even though you've commandeered the ship and you've taken us to the hurricanes, to the Bruins, I'm sure there's a Seattle Cracken weekly report coming up here as well. Eastern Trip wasn't too kind to them. No. Well, and that's good to know because that's why you identified it. You wanted to see how they fair in that, and I think that's exposed some of the issues.

On the protist note, you sort of referenced that play. Yes. I was joking with you that it almost reminded me of watching that, like, that D.K. Metcalf clip, which is becoming a meme of, like, him just frantically chasing down a smaller player and then eventually catching them, right, in the open field. That's the feeling that I had in watching Protis, the way he moves up and down the ice. And in particular, he's had some 5-1-5 success here recently, but on the penalty kill, he's such a

problem because there's all of a sudden more space to navigate. And he's catching sort of offensively oriented players on the other team power play on their back foot. And he's just taking advantage of it. And he's just getting an open space and just flying. I don't think a person's 6-6 should have nearly as much juice as he has. Like the way he moves in that open ice is just a. sight to behold.

And his feet. Yeah. Like that's what's so amazing on that play. It's his feet to do the old, you know, Kevin BX, uh, use your boots as soccer cleats thing. And to do it at full flight without a stick while retrieving the state. Like there's just so much going on that he does so ably that speaks to just an athletic profile that's, I mean, through the roof, limitless in terms of the ceiling it might offer

him as he improves as a hockey player. Yeah. And I tweeted that he's become one of my like most. favorite players to watch. Like he's been playing such a fun game. And what a bet by the capitals here in terms of the development and in terms of the financial commitment they made to him, right? Because last year they signed him to this deal where it's, you know, it's modest.

It's $3.375 million. It's not necessarily breaking the bank. But they signed him to a five-year deal. And people were shocked. On a player who doesn't produce to the level that you'd be like, all right, this is a player that you sign up on for five years. And his development now where he's got the 11 points in 10 games is. is playing on the top line is a legitimate penalty killer.

Like that's such a fun thing. That pro to Strohmovie line is up 10 to 3 at 515 with a 64% expected goal share. The McMichael Wilson PLD line, we joked about how Pierluke Dubois is trying. He's exerting effort. That line has a 64% shot share, 63% expected goals. Connor McMichael has a strong case right now for the best Connor Muck going in the league with Connor McDavid on the shelf. mean, he's got seven five-on-five goals, leads the league in goal per 60 at 5-15.

He's been, his development has also been really fun to track. And so, yeah, I like this Caps team a lot. I like the fact, like it's a problem for teams because we haven't even mentioned then within the grand scheme of things like the Mangiopani line, which can kind of come at you with speed as well as it going to be difficult to play against. And so there's just no off-shifts against them, right? And so in the regular season, that gives you such a high baseline. Has any team more consistently nailed the process?

scouting side of evaluation than the capitals over the last like five or six years. You know, it does feel like Brian McClellan and his front office, we don't talk about them, even though they've won a cup, in some ways we don't talk about them as like an elite front office group. Right. But when it comes to just identifying and finding and then repeatedly sort of sort of repeating the process time and time again, and it's just like, you know, your or law. Jensen type guys, right?

Those, and Orlov, I guess, was homegrown. But the Jensen Orlov pair, the way that Jensen was able to become a top pair, hybrid two-way guy, as opposed to just being a depth guy, knowing that you could give him those sorts of minutes. And then he wouldn't be one of those third pairs who wants their minutes or rolls expand. It sort of begins to fall apart, right? It just feels like the caps repeat that time and time again on defense with sort of, Trevor Van Riemstike kind of being the latest example with, you know, a Chikrin and how he's fit in, I know he's out of the lineup at the moment. Even the Pierre-Luc Dubois, like, we can get more out of them, right?

There's a self-confidence there, and I think it's allowed them to just continually plug these gaps, you know, at a level that I don't know that anyone else in the league does. To be totally honest, like, I think they might be head and shoulders above everyone else on the pro scouting side. And by the way, that includes evaluating your own guys and looking at an Alexi Protis and thinking, hey, maybe this is the guy we got to go along on. When you've looked at their top two centers,

I know I noted that Nick Dowd is leading the team in 5-on-5 ice time amongst forwards, but on the depth chart, their top-two forwards in terms of their scoring lines, or two top-two centers, are Dylanstrom and Pierlu-Dubbaugh. And if you think about it, obviously different stories,

but both were sort of, I think, viewed as reclamation projects, right? Because the Blackhawks let Dylanstrom go, the capitals were able to scoop them up for free, and then essentially turn it into the season he's having now, pure Luke Dubois as well. Obviously, there was a lot of risk involved, and it wasn't necessarily a clean, like,

oh, no risk flyer here that we can take on him, but still at where he's at in his career and then being able to sort of get these early returns on it. I think it's exciting because this team has undergone not only the wins and the wins are great for the standings and all of that, but just the stylistic change they've made, where, as we said, they make the playoffs last year, but it's this pure sort of grinded out.

Let's have the shots on Golby in the low 20s for both teams and rely on Charlie Lindgren to be better than the guy on the opposite end of the ice of him. And we're going to win this way to now being this team that you watch that Rangers game and they're just taking it to them. They're willing to engage in a fast-paced, high event, back and forth style. And that's not something they were willing to do last year

and honestly not equipped to do because of the personnel as well. And so that's a credit to Brian McQuettle and identifying these guys that allow them to actually pursue that as a viable route now. And that's, I think, embracing that and realizing that is also why I think in the early season, Spencer Carberry has probably done the best job of any coach in the league. So, yeah, they've got it all clicking right now. We, I just want to note this because I was thinking about it and Alex Ovechkin scored against

the caps to again today. Against the Keynes, yeah. And so he's up to eight or sorry, seven in 11 games, which is me, by the way, updating it in real time. So excuse me if I'm one off for your audience. the thing I noted though maybe this is a little bit more than a week ago but like that last week of October

he scored his 58th empty netter now I've commented on this a lot the way that like although Nick Dowd was happy to get the empty netter the other day that sense that when you see a Caps forward or a Caps player who's not a Vetchkin score in an empty net they sort of like go by the bench line

and sheepishly and it's like don't make eye contact don't celebrate too much. Right, because as much as the capitals have done an impressive job reloading, and, you know, I think you're right to contrast it with the penguins in a lot of ways, you know, we're still going through or working through an exercise where fundamentally it feels like the point of this, or at least a large point of what we're doing here, is to create an environment where Ovechkin can pass Wayne Gretzky's goals record for the capitals, and that's going to be a cherished memory, I'm sure, for Capitals fans for generations to come.

The goal that he scored that last week in October, it was 58th, his 58th career empty never. Gretzky only has 56. And just given how differently the capitals operate when nets are empty, I just felt like that was something we needed to comment on within the context of the Ovechkin chasing history storyline. But here's a thing, like, just comparing it to, okay, the penguin's sort of linear relationship between the two organizations.

Even them, everything is done within the service of like, let's make the last years of these generational superstars who have been with our organization the entire time memorable and notable and competitive, right? Right. And so you look at the Penguins and, you know, to his credit, Cindy Crosby after we were pretty tough on him last week and you noted how he kind of start slow, had a pair of rock star games again, including just a beautiful overtime winner against the Ducks. and he's leading the charge again for this team now.

And still in what year 20 for Crosby, both those guys are still once again killing it. They're contributing a lot offensively. They're scoring. They're leading the charge for their teams. I will say though, like if everything, and I don't think it was wrong last year to note that, that the entire Caps agenda was in the pursuit of that personal milestone and achievement, obviously reflects great amongst the organization to be able to celebrate that. It's a moneymaker.

Like everything all that. just being a better team and having better players to play with and being in more conducive scoring environments is going to move the needle a lot in that direction, right? So it's not necessarily entirely self-serving in terms of, all right, all we're doing is for this one guy if you can actually improve the environment around him and kind of have your cake and eat it too. Just given how pronounced though, the dynamic is, something we've talked about on here, something that's immediately observable to anyone who's been closely watching Capitol's game. over the last couple of years. I just feel like we didn't talk enough about him beating Wayne Gretzky's 56. And when he got that 58th, when he now has a cushion, right? And by the way, it's like Ovechkin, Gretzky at 50, you know, mid-50s, only one other

player is above 35, right? Like, there's a huge gap here between these two gentlemen and everyone else in hockey history in terms of scoring this specific type of goal. And so I just think it's something that may be passed with too little comment and fanfare. I wanted to almost make up for it here. Well, and here's the thing. If we're talking about how the capitals are much better this year and scoring a lot more, he's going to have more opportunities to do so.

So that's going to help push him over the top as well. All right, Tom, let's take our break here. And then we come back. We'll jump right back into it. We'll close out the show with a few other topics and notes we have from the week that was. You're listening to the Hockey Pedioka streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right, we're back here in the Hockeypedio cast, joined by Thomas Drance. Tom, we've talked about the devils.

We've talked about the caps so far. It looks like we're really Eastern biased and Eastern theme today because the next topic that I had was the Florida Panthers because we just came off of a weekend where Sasha Barkov made his triumphant return home to Finland, right, with a pair of victories against a very strong Dallas Stars team. He's got the five points in those two games. First off, it's great to see him back on the ice after that injury scare earlier this season. Sam Reinhart has just continued going absolutely nuclear this season after the year he had last year.

And you and I were here in the studio on Friday. We were watching the first game of that back-to-back the two teams played. And Barkov walks in early in that game one and sort of in a very patented fashion for him makes a ridiculously difficult play look absolutely effortless where he just walks in. So natural. Rips a shot, beats the goalie cleanly, Jay Godinger at that. And then you noted, look how incredibly happy he is. And he has this smile on his face. And you and I have spoken in the past about it.

He's obviously even Keel of the superstar as you're going to have in the game. And it's become a bit of a trademark of his. We were joking how they won the Stanley Cup. He was finally kind of letting loose a little bit in celebrating finally. And we got to see that side of him. But you could tell how much that meant to him. And I just wanted to kind of note that in terms of, all right, we're talking about what happened in the NHL this past week. I did think that was sort of a very neat and fun storyline to celebrate.

Yeah, and Tampere, right, where Barkov is from, and he's far from alone among current NHL players. Patrick Lyonet obviously is from there. Rope Hints obviously is from there. And even going back, you know, Yerke Lume, Ville Neimanin is sort of the, if you remember Ville Neimanin and the annoying smile, like, first of all, kudos to you. But secondly, he's actually a really important figure in sort of local, hockey. He's sort of the big, he's, he's finished Gary Roberts. He's the, he's the big off-season trainer that works with all of these guys. So, you know, there's a few sort of really meaningful, I think, hockey hubs on the planet, London, Ontario, Magnitagorsk in Russia.

You know, Tapperas or Tampere, Taperra being the team that plays there, is right up there. And Barcoves become sort of the face of that. It matters. It matters a lot to him, right? It means a lot to him. And that was just a moment where you could tell. He's playing on this great team. He's the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers. They've made the finals two years in row. They're able to exert their will over just about every team they play. They went, what, five, two and one without him and Kachuk? I mean, this team is absolutely loaded. I think we come out of the sort of first 10 games or so of the season, the first month of the season anyway. And, I think we're watching these games and thinking, who's beaten Florida? Right? Even with Winnipeg sitting at 11-1-0 and looking full value for that, we're watching Florida and just thinking, who's beating this team? It just feels like this is a guy at the peak of his powers in his hometown, showing out.

Right? He had, he had, what, four points across the two games? Five points, yeah. Five points across the two games. And he was just soaking it in. And for a guy who's, I mean, he's the perfect hockey player. the positional stuff, the length of his stick, the stuff that he can do with it. You know, turns out having Pavel Datsuk's puck skills in David Bacchus' buddy is a pretty good package when you put it all together.

It's just great. Like, it's just fun to see a guy that good who's that important at this point to what matters in the NHL, to the balance of power in the NHL, just like sort of drop his guard and drop the seriousness and just enjoy. scoring a goal and hearing your hometown fans go absolutely wild. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's the Florida Panthers world and we are all living in it, right? It's everything's coming together. It is, it is, it is, they are the main character.

I do think that's a, that's a fun discussion point for us because as an organic plug here for your show, Canucks talk, I'm on every Friday afternoon with you, right? We close out the week. Generally, if you tune in to PDO cast and you're like hearing us break stuff down in depth, then you tune into that. We do a little bit of that in previewing the week upcoming for the Canucks or the, at least the games on their schedule. And then we do silly drafts,

where we're drafting like soups and outerware and just random stuff that is on our mind. But we had a fun conversation this past week there where your co-host Jamie Dodd asked me, are the Four of Panthers, once again, the best team in the league? And I never really, I haven't thought about it yet because we're still too early in the season

for it to really matter. Like being the best team on November 2nd or November 3rd or whatever. There are no prizes awarded. Doesn't matter. Who cares? And what's our sample of games, played with Barkoff. It's like five, right? I mean, we have to wait before we'll know definitively,

obviously. But here's the thing. They're doing it again. The answer is yes. They're doing it again. When they're, when they're best players on the ice and those best players being, you know, those Forsling and Barkov. Yeah, Forzinga Barkov. Kachuk. Rhin. Even Lusterinen and Lundell now. Yep. They're the ones who are driving the results for them. That playing style that's so unique to them still working. Like I was noting on a show earlier this week where it's like the Bruins are just broken by them because after two straight postseason meetings and then early this season they play twice again, you can just tell like they're in their heads. They're living rent free. They're just incredibly frustrated by this problem that is the Florida Panthers where they're just continuously

coming at you. And after every whistle, they're just going to bug you and try to irritate you and force you to, you know, lose your cool and just completely play out of your game. And they're just doing it again. So it is only 10 games or whatever, only five games with Barkov in the lineup. But it's such a neat carryover despite the personnel changes they made this off season to exactly the way they played in making back-to-back-back-up finals and winning last year, that I do feel comfortable saying that for the time being, until I see evidence that a contrary, they're the team that I would trust the most in any playoff series to get over the top. And it's not because they have this sort of this unquantifiable knowing what it takes to win. It's because we can quantify. We've seen

them do that, and they just continued playing that way again. And I think Paul Maris deserves a lot of credit here because I imagine, especially after winning a Stanley Cup, it must be incredibly difficult to get up for every game in October and November again and keep playing that way with no off switch, yet they keep doing it. So do you remember when the Chicago Blackhawks were just like winning everything, right? And then they'd trade a person, like Dave Boland to Toronto. And before Bolan's ACL got injured in that collision with Zach Kassie. or Andrew Ladd goes to Atlanta and then Winnipeg, right?

And a buffalo, obviously, as well and on and on. And it was like all these role players, guys who'd played roles for the Blackhawks would go somewhere else. And it's like, it was almost in retrospect that you understood how good the Blackhawks were. It was, you knew, but once you saw Andrew Ladd be a genuine top of the lineup caliber power forward, you know, putting up 30 goals and 65 points a season in a larger role, it was like, man, and that guy was on their third line, right? Dustin Bufflin was a third line winger for them, and now he's an elite offensive defenseman in the league.

Not that the Panthers are at that point yet, in part, I think, because some of their departures have been a little bit lower key, but when you see Montour have a fringe Norris caliber impact. Yeah, the impact he's having on his new team where it's like, man, oh, the team that he left must just completely be falling apart without this level of plan.

They're fine. They're fine. Yeah, they're totally fine. And, you know, I think you're seeing, I mean, you're seeing it with Ekman Larson in Toronto. Like, look how good Ekman. Larson has looked for the Maple Leafs. You're seeing it, you know, to a lesser extent with Josh Mahura,

who's had to, you know, been drafted in to play a bigger role for the Cracken than they were perhaps intending because of Vince Dunn's absence and he's looking great. Is this the Cracken Report? That's my Cracken Report. Josh Mahura. Today we're identifying Josh Mahura, who by the way I love. And even on... He's been good.

The Panthers lifted the Stanley Cup last year and I was still like, I think Josh for her, should have played a big girl. I don't know. I think they best this one up. Anyway, I'm just saying, we're going to see it with like Niko Mikola at some point, right? Like, we're going to keep seeing it, I think, because I actually, not only are the Panthers self-sustaining in terms of the style they play, but it does actually feel like the individual contributions, the way that players seem to now fit into the machinery to

to be cogs in what the Panthers are able to do on a team level. It actually seems like they depart and are actually meaningfully improved as a result of the experience. I mean, it's pretty incredible what they're doing. Okay. Let me tee you up as our final topic here as we close out today's show and this week's show. You've been on this East versus West idea and sort of just within capturing what's going on in the league hierarchy in particular, maybe a power imbalance or where the power

resides, at least the NHL, obviously the Florida Panthers won the cup last year. And so it did in the east at the end of last season. But if you look right now at what we've seen from the early returns from these teams, it does feel like the Eastern Conference has sort of the majority, I guess, or a greater wealth of teams that I feel like are looking well-defined and dangerous and sort of deep, right? Obviously, the complicating factor here is that the two teams that we would have thought, for the most part, heading into the season out West, we haven't really seen them at their full form, right? Connor McDavid gets hurt even before that. The Oilers, as we talked about, were the biggest regression candidate in the league because they just weren't scoring at all,

which is very uncharacteristic for them. The avalanche, as we've documented, had a ton of injuries, and that just continues for them. Pretty much anyone playing a meaningful role seems to be wincing and in pain for them at this point. But the East looks really good right now. So do you have a, do you still have that stack? Because I remember you had it. It obviously might not be updated. It's not updated. And there have been, I guess, a couple of results. I mean, the Maple Leafs lost to the St. Louis Blues, obviously, on Saturday.

So, you know, the New Jersey Devils lost to the Calgary Flames. So it's not perfect. And obviously, over time, the data is going to ebb and flow. And there's going to be anecdotal sort of bits of evidence. The lightning, for example, dropped to the wild and then also to the jets this week. But to this point, in the season, this is updated as of following the game in Tampere Friday. So not accounting for games Sunday night, Saturday night, Friday night.

In 67 games head-to-head against Eastern Conference opponents, Western Conference teams had, with the qualifiers, the date qualifiers in mind, gone 32, 27 and 8 for a 72 points in 67 games. it's a 531 point percentage. The East had gone 35, 23, and 9. That's 79 points for a 589 point percentage. That's basically the month of October. These two conferences head to head. Now, it's a small sample, obviously,

and we'll have to wait to sort of see what shakes out. But it's not that small because we're counting everything. We're counting, it's a 67 game sample. Yeah. This is a sample that will expand and grow large pretty quickly all the way to 1,300 games. And it's something that I want to keep track of as we go through this season. You know, when we were having the conversation earlier or late last week,

we were talking about that crack in Ottawa game as sort of a telling one. Because in my view, you know, I think the elite teams in the West can hang with the elite teams in the East for the most part. But where I think there is a gap, though, my theory. This is my working theory, and I don't have the evidence for it just yet, but we'll get there. And I'll either be wrong or right. We'll update our dear listeners throughout the show. If we're right, we'll update it if we're wrong. We'll choose on.

We might forget it. No, I won't do that because I'm actually curious to talk about how this unfolds. My theory, though, is that the mid-tier East teams, right? Your senators, your red wings, your sabers-type teams are stronger than equivalent teams in the West, which would be, I guess, the flames with how they've started, deserve to be lumped in there, with the crack in, with the kings, with, you know, I guess some of those teams in the central that aren't quite like, I guess the wild would sort of be the best example of that in the West,

in terms of team quality in my view. So I sort of look at this gap in talent, and I actually think these head-to-head records are a little bit instructive. And I'd add this, when in the month of October, the Blackhawks had only played one game against an Eastern conference opponent, and the sharks hadn't played any. So the East's dominance isn't even inflected yet.

Right. By any... There's not like artificial stat padding. Right. There's no... In fact, quite the opposite, right? The data does not yet reflect the presence of two of the sort of feeblest teams in the league, which reside in the Western Conference.

So, look, it's just something to track, but I think it's worthwhile context to keep in mind, especially because, you know, you're going to have like Steve Eiserman's Red Wings potentially miss the playoffs or this sort of upstart Ottawa Senators team miss the playoffs. and yet I'm pretty confident that they're playoff teams in the West, right? That the 10th best team in the East is probably equivalent to something like the 7th or 8th best team in the West.

That's sort of my working theory. I'm not pronouncing it yet. It's just something I'm monitoring in the early, like a trend I want to keep an eye on as the season unfolds because I do think there's a bit of a strength imbalance with it tilting toward, especially those mid-tier teams in the East.

The interesting thing that's happening for me to track in the East in particular is that it feels like there are some sort of natural openings, at least for the time. The door has been kind of opened because the Bruins, as we mentioned, have showed legitimate flaws. And I think reasons for concern moving forward. The Islanders who were a playoff team last year are obviously once again struggling to score goals, but have a bunch of injuries now as well on the back end and Barzal's bang up as well. And so I think they're in a world of hurt there. I think there's an opening at least for one team now to sort of seize that. Maybe more. But for all of our obsession with the Buffalo Sabres over the past couple years,

and I think even the Detroit Weddings to an extent because they were so close last year. Lucas Raymond's so cool. Yeah. So we had reasons to talk ourselves into it. I do think I'm tracking the Ottawa senators now because not only from, you mentioned sort of that sort of barometer of like middle of the pack teams, East First West, and kind of how they showed out there. they had a couple tough losses during a Western Conference road trip where they sort of blew a game late to the Vegas Golden Knights. And then they made it close against the Colorado Islandch, but they fell short. But they've had a few blowout performances so far offensively where I really like to see that where like when they're going, you can see the fully realized version where they're just absolutely nuking a team like the St. Louis Blues, who once again, that supports your theory in terms of teams who are sort of in that parallel place in the league in their respective conferences. Their power play is phenomenal right now.

now, I believe it's top three in the league in efficiency. I think they need to figure out the Travis Hamannick minutes because he shouldn't really be playing in such a meaningful role, especially with Jake Sanderson, who is so good in his own right. And I think if they can get Aram Zubak, that'll help a lot. But I like what I'm seeing from the center's team, I do feel like, for whatever concerns we had about them in the past, they made a lot of sort of very well-reasoned moves this off-season to, like, bring legitimacy and coherence.

to their lineup in various positions of like professionals who are going to sort of address some of the issues they had previously with their players. And so I like what I'm seeing from them. They're a team that maybe we can sort of put in the back of our minds, track them for a little bit, and then maybe use them as a topic of discussion in a future episode that you and I do. Yeah. And I think as we get a little more perron and a little more Zub,

and certainly those Hamannick minutes have been a bit of a problem. They've been outscored 6 to 1, 5 on 5 in his minutes, and that's not even factoring in what you might get from Sanderson if he was equipped with your answer, like what Miro Hayskinin has. Not to compare him directly to Miro Heiskenen, but what Thomas Harley opens up for Hayskinnan or Phil Peronik opens up for Hughes, right? Just a more dynamic running mate.

I think we've seen now repeatedly. The Taves thing, the Harley thing, the Heronic thing is kind of offered us, indisputable proof in my mind that, you know, saddling X puck moving D with the babysitting shutdown guy isn't actually the optimal way to go about it. So I think what you're talking about, though, where they have a pitch speed now, where it certainly looks like they're capable of skating you off the ice. If you're not careful, if you're not on, you're in trouble against the senators. They've sort of hit that bar and, look, if they can get a few more saves and get some bodies

back. I mean, definitely the Atlantic is going to be really interesting to watch over the balance, and I think they're a major reason why. Do you have any notes on this coming week? I guess we kind of identified as like just this dynamic between the two conferences is a thing to watch. There's no necessarily huge games on the schedule. We've got our devils against the Edmonton Oilers in the Amazon Monday primetime game this week. I think that'll be a fun one, even though Connor McDavid isn't playing. The Oilers actually, I think, are notable because you look at their schedule this week, right? And I believe they have that game against the devils. They play the Vegas Golden Knights, who they'll be battling with in Pacific. They play the Canucks as well. And so they're going to have to weather this

storm without McDavid. I will say, though, the one instance we've seen so far, and maybe we should throw this out the window because the predators have been struggling and because Leandro Seidel just owns their organization historically, he in that role of like, all right, well, McDavid's out, I just need to shoulder more of the burden now. He was out of this world in that game, in my opinion, that I believe they played on Thursday in Nashville. They finally got Victor Harvinson a goal. They got Zach Hyman a goal. We expect them to just start scoring more in general

because of all the chances they're generating. So I think that's a very positive development. But I think this week for the Oilers is going to be a big inflection point, I guess, for them. Because obviously, we've seen them bounce back from an early season rut, but you don't want to get into that habit of every year having to then rely on your top guys

to carry you with legitimate mileage in the second half of the season. And we saw them escape from an early season rut, but you don't want to lose contact. I mean, you've got three teams in your division currently carrying well over a 600 point percentage. And that doesn't even factor in Calgary that's like 591, right? The way that the Pacific has run out to this point. And I think the fact that the Cracken have not had a good run out but are still a pretty robust side, like certainly a playoff caliber side, if a, if a fact,

few things hit for them. You know, like the Crackin have basically just cost themselves in Joey Decord game, or sorry, in Philip Grubauer. Yes. Like aside from that, they've been a tough out every given night. I do think there's a higher cost to falling behind in the Pacific this year than there was last season. So that's the first part.

And the second part is we saw it in game seven. Like ultimately, the, the Oilers never really recovered. from their killer start because as that playoff series against the Panthers went along, the dynamic was clear. When they could choose the matchup and get McDavid freed up

from Foresling Barkov, they were going to run roughshot over them and when they couldn't, it was going to be tight, game seven was tight and the Panthers got the extra bounce. I mean, period. Like that's, you know,

they can't put themselves in that position again. They have enough talent to overcome McDavid's absence. I guess the only other one I want to shout out would be Thursday night avalanche jets. I'm pretty excited. Avs haven't obviously been near their best. They're getting Lekinen back this week, though,

which I think is huge for them. Huge. And could that game mark, you know, Jets now this week have Utah, and then this game against the Aves, they are flying high. I mean, they're doing some ridiculous stuff right now. Could that game feel like a changing of the guard

if the Aves can't get right for it, right? I certainly I think it'll be covered and discussed in that respect will it actually will the play on the ice actually reflect it I'm really curious to watch that one well I'm looking forward to watching that one and then following up with you next Sunday Tom that's all the time we have for today we're going to get out of here everybody follow your work at the athletic listen to your show Canucks talk on the rager on the rogers sports net radio network as well let's go pop into the discord let us know how much you're loving these weekly shows tom and I are doing also you can suggest topics for us that you want us to cover because you know that every Sunday night. We're going to be getting together and hammering the week that was in the league and getting into some fun stuff. So please join us for that. Tom, we'll be back next Sunday with you. Let's go. I'll be back in a couple days here with another episode of the Ocadipediocast. Thank you for listening to us here on the Sportsnet Radio Network.