The Hockey PDOcast - Notable Starts to the Season and How Much We’re Buying Them

Episode Date: October 20, 2023

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by John Matisz to talk about Auston Matthews' strong start to the year, and other notable performances from the first week of the season that they're keeping an eye on moving forward.This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty.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.

Progressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the HockeyedioCast. My name is Dimitra Filipovich and joining me is my good buddy John Mattis. John, what's going on in? Damn, it's been a long time. Three, four months. I'm not sure the exact date that we spoke last on the podcast, but it's a pleasure as all. I feel like we probably spoke during the Stanley Cup final.

So yeah, who knows how many months it's been. It was a long offseason. We're so back, though. And it's good to have you back on the show. So here's a game plan for today. We are going to talk a little bit about the Leafs about the start of their season, their first four games, some of the notable performances. And then we're going to get in some listener questions that we have. We're going to talk about some early season overreactions.

We've got about, I think pretty much every team now is maybe the Islanders have played only two games so far. But it feels like everyone's played around three or four games at least. So we at least have a little bit of a sample to overreact to. But let's start with the Leafs. So I think this is a good position for us to start with awesome Matthews, open the year with back-to-back hat tricks. Since then, he's been held off the score sheet in the two games, but I don't know if you feel this way.

It feels like out of those two, right, the back-to-back hatrix and then the two scoreless games, it feels like this goalless streak, if you want to call that since it's only two games, feels like the bigger outlier out of the two. I know for a while he had that stretch where like he would have so many multi-goal games, but he wouldn't be having hat-tricks. but it feels like just because of the level he's playing at how he's playing

and how the Sleaves team is playing around him, it feels like he is as well positioned as ever to just absolutely go off from a goal scoring perspective this season. Yeah, you could argue that his third game, when he had 18 shot attempts, that was his finest of the season so far. And that's not to look down on the other games. Like he's been consistently great, not good, not very good.

He's been great. and very much a force of nature out there. Like, you know, there's a lot of narratives when it comes to injuries and how it affects performance. And sometimes you roll your eyes at them and go, oh, that seems like an excuse. But you look at Matthews and he seems so free. He seems so physically optimal this year. Whereas last year, you know, apparently was dealing with a wrist injury, which was nagging him for a couple of years. Apparently it's on the up and up now.

And you can tell. And, you know, he seems to be maybe a half step quicker. He seems to be, I don't know, maybe a slightly stronger. Like, it just seems like we're getting, you know, peak Matthews in a lot of ways. And it's really been super fun to watch. And, you know, there's been a fair amount of hand-rigging around the Toronto market as far as the start that they've had. You know, they're one three and O. But one thing you can talk.

Two and two, John. We don't want people getting after you. Oh, you're right. Yeah, they did come back and steal victory from the jaws of the feet late against the Canadians. Yeah, I counted that in my head as a loss. But yeah, the one thing you can't take away from this team, though, is that their stars are playing at a high level. So silver lining, if you're a leaf fan and you have some knits to pick with the lineup and the depth and whatnot, which I'm sure we'll get into, A silver lining, Matthews has been phenomenal.

Neelander's been very good as well. Marner's been kind of his usual self. Tavares has looked pretty good. So it's the best you could pretty much ask for as far as the big four. Something we probably don't take into account enough. I'm speaking about us as sort of media members and fans that really comes to your attention once you talk to people behind the scenes. And maybe it's because we're just not privy to the information.

A lot of it is kind of post hoc, right? We find out about it after the fact. But just quantifying the impact of like having a healthy off season to actually properly train and ramp up and add as opposed to rehabbing or needing to take time off because you had surgery or, you know, for whatever ailments you may have had. And then all of a sudden you're kind of playing from behind. You enter the season. Maybe you're not 100%. And it's really tough to actually fully recover once the grind of the season gets going because you have so little down. time in the next, whatever, six to eight months the season last. So actually starting from a

fresh perspective of 100% and then being able to go at it from that angle is probably something that we just don't. I mean, it's, it's almost impossible to quantify, I guess for us, but it's also something we probably don't consider enough as a tangible impact when we evaluate player performance heading into the season. Yeah, we love to talk about the Stanley Cup hangover, right? Every year, oh, is this team going to be able to bounce back after a long postseason? They win the cup. Such a high, you know, the celebrations, the parade, the sort of slow start to an off season because you're just trying to come down and get back to zero.

And then you try to ramp up for training camp and things just don't get off on the right foot. Obviously, Vegas is an exception of the rule right now at 5 and 0. But traditionally that's been a whole thing, right? It's a cliche for a reason. And I think it also relates to players where if you just don't have that time to go to the lab and work on your skills because of some issue with your body or it could even be mental health, that's going to affect your season. There's no doubt about it. Yeah, Vegas almost needs to be considered as its own entity because not only did they bring their entire team back together essentially other than Riley Smith, but also like what were we talking about all postseason, they were just they were spreading the wealth so much because of the personnel they had where. Their top players weren't playing the usual amount we see from Stanley Cup winners where their top players,

they ride them and then they grind them into dust. And for the next season, they just have nothing left in the tank. For Vegas, they could have basically just kept it rolling. And obviously, Mark Stone staying healthy in the time being is very valuable to them as well. But yeah, back to Matthews, though, I mentioned the situation he's in, right? And here's a few numbers for you. So he's playing 2331 per game right now through these first four games. him and Marner are playing more than a full minute higher than any other forward in the league.

And Mike Babcock's listening to this right now, just punching air, wondering why he's not playing only 18 minutes the way he'd prefer. He's played 1543 of the team's 1934 available powerplay minutes. And I made this point when I was talking with Emily about how the devils, because of all the players they have up front, have essentially split their top two powerplay units into line one and line two. and that's affected a guy like Timel Meyer who doesn't get to play with Jack Hughes and Jasper Brad on the top unit powerplay. In this case, Toronto is doing exactly what I prefer

and it makes sense when you have the personnel they have, which is you're going to play them roughly 80% of all available power play minutes, right? Which comes out to about a minute 40 out of every two minute minor. And I think that's the way it should be. So they finally almost optimized this usage. And then the added wrinkle this year

is we're seeing him kill penalties now too. And he's looked great doing so. and Houda Thun get a player with every single possible skill in his toolbag that you'd want from a penalty killer is good at it. I mean, it's a shocker that it's worked out that way. Do you get where coaches are coming from, though, when they're hesitant with, say, a guy like Matthews, who's relied on so thoroughly on power play and even strength to say, you know what, power, penalty kill, like, we can find other guys to do that. I've always been in the mind that, like, it's kind of case by case. And certainly to start a season, you can tinker and you can.

test and you can figure out if there is a fit. But I think people get really excited about, oh, this guy can play penalty kill, but it's like should he as far as what's in his tank throughout a game? Well, I think when you have the skill set he does in particular, like just the ability to absorb Pucks and anything that's in his vicinity will be his and all of that other stuff, right? I think not every top player is created equal. And maybe if your skill set is slanted in a different direction just because you're the top player. It doesn't mean you should be out there for those minutes. But what, he's played eight minutes so far on the power play.

And he played like nine in the previous two seasons combined. And the Leafs are out shooting the opposing power play in that time. Right. And he had a couple of those shifts against the Blackhawks when they were trying to get back in that game where it almost looked like they were on the power play, even though they had one less man on the ice. And so it makes sense you're not, I get the risk of, oh, you know, you're exposing him to maybe more block shots, which could potentially lead to a broken bone or an injury. But for the most part, I think he can sort of pick his spots and just what he's able to do in terms of jumping and passing lanes and disrupting with his reach makes him such a valuable

player on that under the ice. And so maybe not the top penalty killing unit, but certainly there's room to experiment with that. And I'm glad they're finally doing so after years of us wondering kind of why that wasn't happening. Well, and part of the reason why he's so effective, and I don't know if you want to get into this right now because it was a listener question, but his ability to cause turnoff, versus next level. I mean, maybe, you know, it's certainly upper echelong in the league.

Do you want to get into that? Sure. Well, the question, I don't have it open for me right now, but was essentially along the lines and I'm paraphrasing of like any puck that in his vicinity he seems to get it and kind of why is he so good in that regard. And, you know, part of it is the reach. I think part of it is the strength on the puck as well, right? Like it seems like 50-50 pucks for him are probably more so like 70-30,

if not 80, 20. And so the ability, like the reach, the strength, and then the anticipation, right? And kind of the smarts, like, makes sense. The stuff that he uses to be so good offensively also helps in other areas of ice, even when he doesn't have the puck. And so put all those things together. And I think that's why he's able to win so many of these battles and disrupt so much, right?

I don't know. Do you have anything else in terms of sort of what makes players so good at that, in that specific kind of area of the ice? Well, I would just say if anyone listening wants to see a textbook steal, if we want to call them steals, whatever, change of possession one-on-one. Last night against Florida against Gustav Forsling, Matthews dumps the puck in. It's like the first period. You can find the highlight pack. He chases after the puck.

Foresling gets it. And Matthew's just very legally a nice stick lift. And then while he's sticklifting, he does sort of a rub out, a very, again, a very legal. rub out and steals the puck and he's got possession and he tried a wrap around or something like that. And it was just so smooth and so, like it was, I hate to use the word nice, but it was like it was some, sometimes guys are unnecessarily physical and he just, he hit that right, that perfect balance of being physical functionally to get the puck back versus nailing the guy and then, you know, falling with the guy and then the puck goes somewhere else. Like his whole intention there,

was to steal the puck. And I mean, obviously timing is massive there, anticipation. I think hand-eye has something to do with it too. You know, you can maybe make the correlation between stripping pucks and tipping pucks in front of the net. There's a lot of overlap there. And especially when you think of the players that do both well, I think it makes a lot of sense. So, yeah, I don't have a ton more to say on that. It's just that one, that one steal that he had against Fordsling was I watched it.

I'm like 10 out of 10, he couldn't have done anything better. than that. It's almost like his stick weighs 10 times the amount of the opponent stick, right? In terms of like how it's like it's almost like someone's using like an actual sword against like some, some dinky. Like a broom stick or something? Yeah, exactly. And it's like once his stick hits your stick that, or just goes flying. And so he's able to utilize and then the strength obviously on the pocket that we think of is a big reason why like if you look, I think he has 21 high danger chances already so far on natural Stadrick in these four games. next in the league is Matthew Kachukuk in like 15, which is such a basid gap for this early in the season. And his ability to like shrink the proximity to the net where he gets a lot of these chances, right? Like we think of the shot and kind of that drag release and how he's able to score off the rush and kind of post up in the slot.

But while so far the season, where we see most of his goals come from, right? He has that like wrap around against the wild. he quick like he just gets open right in front of the net and then scores from that area so the ability to do so there is why he's able to score so many goals and why you should feel confident that like then i think another another question was like 50-50 i have no idea who knows how many goals he's going to wind up scoring but if he keeps generating this many chances and playing this much on this team like he's going to lead the league in goal scoring i feel pretty confident about that well with the turnovers you know you like to say on the

show and i completely agree and i've always also asked people, you know, scouts, front office people, a similar question is with defense, like, I don't know what percentage you want to give it, but at least 50% of defensive play, especially for forward's his effort. And you can really see that with Matthews. Like when he wants to be Mr. Selke, he can be. And that's not to say when he isn't in that zone, he's poor defensively. It's just he can really turn it on. And again, that Florida game was a great example. I don't know how many takeaways he technically had that they gave him credit for, but he had at least three very noticeable ones.

And it's him deciding, I'm going to flip the switch here and chase this guy down in an appropriate way. I'm not going to take myself out of position, but I'm going to make it difficult for this guy to break out the puck. And I think, I think it's just, he's such a unicorn, right, with how good of a skater he is, how big he is, you know, whether it's his height or his strength and just his hands are, you know, just, you know, incredible and the shot. And you just look at the toolbox is overflowing with, with, you know, five-star ratings. Like, it's crazy.

Yeah, and we're in such a cool spot as fans where, like, him, McKinnon and McDavid are able to dominate shifts in games in such distinctive ways as well, right? Like, oh, they all do it very differently, but they get to the same result. And so I think that's pretty cool as well, where there's not actually that much overlap beyond the actual offensive production between the three,

but it's still really fun to watch. I mentioned the situation he's in and the usage because I think a big difference for this year compared to maybe the past couple, and it's ironic because you wouldn't know it if you listen to, you know, maybe talk radio in Toronto locally where people would have been arguing for years

that the defense was a problem, and that was their biggest, area weakness of what they needed to fix. This year, I know there was a pretty low scoring game most recently against Florida, but previously they were getting in some of these environments where maybe they had to rely on the top players more because not only are they not getting that much in the way of offensive production from the bottom six, but also I think this year there are some serious questions in terms of the defensive personnel, right, in terms of the defense pairings and how

they're using them and what the options they have available to them. And so if they are actually going to get in these game environments where they have to push more offensively and ramp up and actually rely on their top guys to generate, that's going to be, I'm sure that's going to be stressful for Sheldon Keev and Lee fans, but it would also be pretty fought into watch. And I think that was one of my complaints the past couple of years where there was something so sort of like methodical and kind of copy paste or cookie cutter about how the regular season games are going. And at least in the early going this season, it feels like it's been a bit different in that regard. Yeah, it's been pretty chaotic for a team that's, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but they've been a top 10 defensive team two, three years in a row coming into the season. And like you said, you might not know it by the way that they're known across the league by people that maybe don't play super close attention to them.

But it's true pretty much ever since Keith came around, he's found a way to get the most out of his forwards playing defensively and get the most out of a blue line that's been, you know, range from decent to solid over the past handful of years. And I mean, when I look at this team, I see a really messy lineup. I don't know about you, Dimitri, but a lot of puzzle pieces. And in a vacuum, a lot of good players, but these pieces don't seem to fit, at least right now. And honestly, like, if I'm being completely truth, but I don't know if I see them fitting later. And perhaps Bradtree Living has tricks up a sleeve.

You still got plenty of time before the deadline and who knows what will happen as far as call-ups and whatnot. But as it stands now, I'm seeing beyond four or five guys up front, a lot of what's the word disjointedness, a lot of one-way, one-dimensional players. And then on defense, Riley and Brody has your top pair. That's fine. I don't think you really need to touch that. but then you need to figure out what are you doing with the other four guys. You've got Klingberg, Giordano, McCabe, Lilligran. I think it makes most sense to put Giordano and Klingberg together and shelter them as a third pair

so that, you know, Klingberg can get his minutes on the power play and Giordano can be conserved for the playoffs. And he's just 40, like, you can't expect that much from him? But then, you know, you look at that second pair and you're like, can McCabe and Lilligran do it? McCabe's been a real confusing player as far as when he was with Buffalo, when he was with Chicago, and at times in Toronto, I've been like, this is a number four guy on a contending team. And then you see him to start the season and he's running around a lot. He's making questionable decisions. I think he needs to simplify. Be a little more like T.J. Brody in terms of helping out his partner and letting his partner be more of the offensive driver.

but I don't know my brain gets scrambled just looking at their lineup and trying to figure out okay do these combinations work long term yeah well the issue is that I agree with you that's probably the most optimal way to kind of allocate the resources but Giordano's 40 and I thought he looked it looked apart last postseason because they had just used them too much and so I think they're very cautious about and deservedly so

about using him too much this season but they also have shown that they're kind of reluctant or want to be careful about what type of minutes they give Timothy Liligrin as well. And so it prevents them. I think it kind of almost boxes them into just using both those guys as like a good sheltered third pair. But then you can't really play Klingberg and McKay based on how they've looked in the early going. They've played 45 and five minutes together and they've already given up five goals against in that time. And when you see numbers like that, you think, okay, well, yeah, I'm sure they're just getting super unlucky. There's no way the puck can go in that often.

And it's like, well, high danger chances are 20 to 6 in that time for opponents. So it's not good. And we're going on this stretch now for Jake McCabe, where if you go back since the start of last postseason, right? So 15 games last postseason started this year, he's played 275, 515 minutes, and the leaves are getting outscored 18 to 6 in that time. And I think part of it is like playing beyond his means in terms of his talent level. But also I think sometimes defensively he can like trick people into thinking he's very like active and good defensively. But he's actually just a step behind. And so he's chasing it.

And he's always kind of like in the picture and doing something. But it's always a bit a step too slow because he puts himself out of position by trying to do too much sometimes. And so yeah. And you know, I don't think we need to get on the case of Klingberg. I think it's sort of everyone understands the deal at this point and the issues with him as a player. but putting those two guys together is tough. And of course, William Nealander has played 40% of his minutes with those two

and been on the ice for a bunch of goals against. And so, yeah, it's a whole can of worms. But ultimately the talent up front, like just we mentioned from the top players, is good enough to cover for a lot of this stuff. But I do think there's some concerns. And this version of the team is almost much more in line with, like, whatever your complaints were previously about. them, right? And so it's, it's, it's kind of ironic and I wanted to bring that up.

Yeah, and I don't know. It just seems like Bradtree living in the offseason, and it sounds stupid to say this out loud because he obviously thought through, if I acquire this guy, he's going to be fitting with this guy on this line, because I think you don't really sign guys without at least an idea, but it sure looks like he didn't put too much thought into like, okay, who's going to play with Domi? Okay, Ryan Reeves. So he's going to be on the fourth line. you know, who's sort of balancing that out? Is he going to play every night? So far he has.

And it's just, especially the bottom six, because they don't have a third line center right now with Frasier Minton not being ready for, and, you know, he's a great story and everything, but he's clearly not ready for that role. And who would expect him to be, you know, he just got picked in the second round a couple years ago. But that's a huge hole because I don't know if David Camp

is a third line center on a contender. He should be in that four hole. So I see a fairly big need there in terms of the third line center. And maybe if you just find that guy on the trade market, everything's solved. Everything kind of fits together. But even so, it doesn't quite seem right. Yeah, I'm with you on that. Any other leaf notes or kind of related stuff?

Or do you want to move on other topics? I think we can move on. All right. Let's actually take our break. I think there's a good point to split up the conversation. So we'll take our break here. And then when we come back, we'll bounce around. I'll talk about a variety of other topics

who are listening to the Hockey P.D.O. cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. Discussing the biggest stories that matter to Vancouver sports fans, Halford and Bruff in the morning. Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the Hockey-D-Ocast. We're here with John Mattis.

John, let's get into talking about a bunch of different teams and bouncing around the league and doing sort of our first week old reactions because we got this question from Easy Chatter that asks, what are some signs? that a team's early struggles or successes are real. How soon before something like shot share percentage or expected goal percentage start to tell the long-term real story? So obviously, you know, we first week of the season every year,

we see teams we were expecting to be bad, jump out to hot starts, win a couple games. Everyone's like, oh, they might not actually be that bad. And then I think the reality of the season eventually takes course, right? And they river back to what we expect. there are going to be time certainly where especially I think with younger teams maybe they just become much better than we thought they had any right to be based on the personnel they had and everyone just improves and all of a sudden they're much for scare at least than we thought heading in

and so that's something to keep in mind but I'm kind of curious how you view this and sort of how you how you judge it from a full season perspective in terms of when you finally start to actually put stock into early season performance and when you start to take teams seriously that you otherwise may not have based on your previous sort of expectations for them and kind of how you weigh all that stuff in the grand scheme of things.

I'd say if I'm going to put a number of games on it, it would be somewhere in the 20 range, about a quarter of the season. I think that 10, you know, you can start to look under the hood and make a few um, make a few judgments.

but the thing about the first month or so of the season is there's so much line juggling. There's depending on the team, maybe they have a new coach. There might be just some hiccups with systems. And we've just seen time and time again. Like I'll just use the Buffalo Sabres of a few years ago, for example, you know, a team that goes on a 10-game winning streak and then a 10-game losing streak. Things can just go back and forth so quickly that at the earliest, I think 20 games is when you can, you can put some stock into these numbers.

And I think, you know, even though goaltending can be a difficult position to judge, I think that taking the temperature of goaltending after, say, 10 games is appropriate. As far as expectations coming in, has the goal looked out of place? You know, has there, like if you look back on the goal scored on your team, is this the goalie's fault? because I think that you can see some red flags with goalies earlier than the full team itself. So that's something that I would also keep in mind. And I don't know.

Like obviously, you know, if we're being totally truthful, you know, you probably want as much time as possible before really crowning a team, you know, a contender that was maybe a fringe playoff team. but you know there's there's the whole American Thanksgiving cut off for a reason because usually the teams that are in the playoffs at that point which is November, late November if I remember correctly it's historically shown that those teams in the playoffs then usually are in the playoffs

at the end of the year so that's roughly around 20 games too yeah you the right answer is probably 20 to 25 games it doesn't make for the best content It's not very satisfying for our listeners. We're like, you know what? Let's not form any opinions or have any fun. We've got to wait for at least 17 more games for each of these teams

before we decide one way or another. I think you just kind of have to actually watch the games, though. Sure. Not that would come up, but just to see how you're coming by those results, right? Whether it's like something that actually makes sense, you've got to certainly apply some common sense. Like an example here is the flyers are three and one, right? They're coming off of a pretty impressive,

one victory against the Oilers on Thursday night. And I believe, like, the underline numbers actually look good. Their eighth and shot share, their sixth and expected goal share. They're better than, they started hot last year as well. And a lot of it was just goaltending driven. And then they crash back down earth. I think it makes sense that a John Chordrella team would come out of the gate playing, like, very motivated, inspired hockey.

And then eventually the relative lack of talent would start to show itself. And that's a tough thing to paper over. What I will say about the Flyers, though, is Sean Couturey being back and playing at this level is not only so satisfying to see, but also clearly makes such a massive difference. Like he's playing 20 minutes and 44 seconds per game. He's got four points in four games with him on the ice at 5-1-5 this season. They're up 3-0. High-hanger chances are 14 to 4. They've given up four high-danger chances against in nearly 50 minutes of game time.

and they're downright dominating last night. He plays about 11 of his 12 and a half minutes at 5-15 against the McDavid-Joyce-Hidal combo, and they out-chute the Oilers 8 to 5, outscore them 2-0. I'm not sure if you saw the goal he set up, but it was like a vintage Couturee moment where on the penalty kill,

he essentially figures out what McDavid wants to do with the puck, jumps the passing lane, picks it off, and then instead of just dumping the puck down the ice and changing, holds on to it, threads this nice little pass. the spring, Philly down the ice and they score a short-hny goal against that essentially changes the outcome of the game. And so his ability to do stuff like that not only impacts them in terms of when he's on

the ice, but just having him in there makes everyone further down the lineup look a little bit better because all of a sudden they're not the ones having to face McDavid and Dreisito, which is something they didn't have the luxury of last year. So we'll see it's a long season, but at least while he's playing at this level, not only is very cool, but also clearly makes a difference. Yeah, I think that's bang on. And the guy was out for 663 days. Yeah, from December 18th, 2021 to October 12th, 20203.

That's absolutely bonkers. That bridged his 20s into his 30s. It's crazy. And I watched his first game really closely. And I'm looking, okay, is he hesitant to get into traffic? Is he, has he lost, you know, the IQ to any extent? Is he sluggish? none of those things jumped off the page when I was watching them.

And you kind of, I don't know about you, but, you know, so many guys step up into this post-Bergeron Selki conversation that you kind of forget about Couturee, and he won the Selke his last full season in the league. So that's kind of crazy. And on the flip side, and I know you talked about Tampa with Emily Kaplan yesterday, but if we're talking about making judgments on teams early on,

and when you should. I think that Tampa is a good example of the other extreme, the opposite of Philly, where you see some good in Philly that might be sustained. I see some bad in Tampa that might be sustained. I just, I look at their depth and it's, I,

you know, there's some guys that shouldn't be in the, in the NHL. There's some guys that are just hanging on by, by a thread. And, you know, it's sad to see because this is a dynasty or near dynasty,

kind of starting to fade away. unless something dramatic happens here, but the bottom of their lineup is just so close to being HL players that it's a little scary. And Vasilowski being out for two months, not ideal in terms of getting behind the eight ball and whatnot. And it's not like they had a backup to start with. That was some NHL veteran that they could lean on and grind some wins out.

So, you know, I wouldn't say it's full on panic in Tampa, but like that's one team where I look at and go, I was wondering how this lack of depth would show early on. And so far, it's not showing well. Yeah, there's going to be nights where Kutrov is just so brilliant, right? Both him and point that like it was on Thursday night against the Canucks, where he's just going to be the best player on the ice and take games over. And that'll be good enough for them to win.

But the margin for error has shrunk to such a small degree that it's like, If he's not completely on or if things just aren't going their way, there's not that much to fall back on. And a lot of the defensive numbers are very troubled. Some I know they're changing the defensive structure and scheme, and that might take an adjustment period. I just, beyond the Vasilevsky there, I just think the underlying numbers and defensive metrics are concerning. And so that's Sumnal Monitor. I'm right there with you. You know, on the other end of it, if you just sort by expected goalshare so far, the season of the Bruins are, once again,

number one on that list. And there's certainly a team that you could say the same things about in terms of the amount of talent they lost, how the aging core and all that. Now, they've only played three games so far this year. The reason why I brought up, like, you need to actually see how you're coming by the numbers is that season long number is heavily skewed by one game, which is an absolute drubbing on Thursday night of the San Jose sharks who, I know I say this every year. Like I said, this is about the ducks last year. But they might be the worst team I've ever seen. I don't know what is going on right now.

I mean, are they obviously expected to be bad hanging in and it's going to be a long turnaround here for them? But poor Mark out there for as much as he is and just flailing around and struggling to the degree that he is, is very depressing. Maybe a necessary evil, but still a tough one to observe on a night-to-night basis.

But with the Bruins, like, I was expecting a big regression this year. I mean, certainly from the historic year they had, but even just from the usual expectations for them, maybe the goal tending, which is still obviously very good with Allmark and Swayman, the infrastructure in terms of the top players and the way they play, and also the special teams, which has once again been dynamite, is probably good enough to mitigate a lot of that. And so they're going to be someone that I'm going to be watching more closely once the schedule becomes a bit more difficult to see how that plays out. I think their margin for error is certainly

shrunk as well similar to the lightning, but at least they have those foundational pieces working for them that I think can get them a lot of regular season points in the meantime. Absolutely. And we can't forget Jim Montgomery, good coach, their core, whether it's, you know, Linholm, McAvoy, Pasternak, Marshan, you mentioned the goalies, like the top of the roster is still quite good. It's just I found coming into the season, you know, getting really excited. excited about a team that didn't have

Bergeron and Kreutche anymore was difficult when Coyle and Zaka, who were perfectly fine players, were thrust into these bigger roles. I just envisioning that being, you know, let's say a 100-point team was far more difficult than than imagining that, you know, they would be you know, this juggernaut again.

So anyways, it's, there's certainly a team where I think, I think, you know, it's one of those things where last year was so, I mean, they broke the points record. They were so extremely good that coming down 30 points in the standings will still be a very good season. So the optics and the expectations are all out of whack with Boston. Do you know who's second in file and five expected goal shares this season? No idea. The Nashville Predators. who have been a net positive at 5-1-5 so far this season

in every game they've played, and this has been their schedule. Tampa Bay, Seattle, Boston, Edmonton, New York Rangers, and a very weird schedule because I believe they've alternated being on the road and playing at home in every one of those games. Like they haven't played back-to-back on the road or at home. They've basically just been traveling the entire time against pretty good competition.

And at least the early returns on, you know, the coaching change and what impact that would have on their team offense under Andrew Brunette. Certainly looks good. I think that top line bringing in Ryan O'Reilly having a healthy Philip Foresberg at premise the end of last year and then putting Yusso Parson in with them. It's kind of an odd collection of talent, but they've been absolutely fantastic together so far, capped off by Philip Forsberg's rock star goal in MSG last night where he gets knocked down, keeps stick handling while he's on his knees, gets up, and then just walks into a good

old fashioned slap shot. I know the slap shot's kind of going out of style in the NHL, but that was a, that was one of like a classic 80s goal that just happened to be against Eversus Durkin, one of the best goalies in the world. So yeah, the predators are someone that I, I mean, I want to watch more out because I think they're playing a fun brand of hockey and also it's kind of an eclectic group of players that have been put together. But the fact that they're not only playing an aesthetically pleasing brand so far, but also are getting these. types of results should be pretty encouraging for kind of their outlook moving forward. Yeah, they have a lot of players where you're wondering if they're going to pop, right?

Luke Evangelista, you said Parsons. These guys have found success in the NHL, but you're wondering, like, what's the ceiling here? At least what's the next step? Even Dante Fabro, you know, what is he ultimately going to be in the NHL now that he's getting, you know, hundreds of games under his belt and playing some time with the OC. And I think their floor is always going to be. high with Seros back there, right? And with, you know, O'Reilly at number one center, I never really thought that this team was going to, you know, live at the bottom of the standings. I was concerned

about their ceiling and I still am as far as this season. But they're super interesting, especially when you wrap in, or you wrap it all up with with Barry Trots going from coach to GM and clearly looking at things from a different perspective than some of his contemporaries, even though he is a quote unquote old school hockey guy in terms of his his time of service in the NHL and whatnot. He's, I think he's looking at things quite differently

and he has opinions about the old core and clearly about this refresh core. Well, number five on this list, a team that also made changes this offseason to L.A. Kings, and I know you wanted to talk about them a little bit, but since their opener against Colorado and it wasn't a very good showing,

I think how good Colorado's look since then should alleviate or should maybe kind of put that into perspective, right? Where it's like, all right, well, Colorado is a 14-4 goal differential so far this season. They're just ripping through teams. They scored five goals against the hurricanes. They scored five goals against the Jets. And then they scored seven goals against the wild. I know there's some empty netters in there.

But the point stands that a lot of the depth we liked on this team in terms of especially the top three forward lines where they're all anchored by a really good center. And then they have wingers. Victor Arvinson's been out with injury, but they have wingers who theoretically makes sense as shoot first wingers next to pass first centers. So far has gelled really nicely. And they're once again a really strong 5-15 team that's playing at a high event pace. And I like watching them play. And I think that these early results should be very exciting about what this team can look like when it's fully healthy and its ability to finally take

that next step as an organization. We've seen them sort of cap out the past couple of years as very tough to play against the regular season but lacking the high end talent in round one of the playoffs to advance further and now they might finally have it and so at least offensively it looks like they're kind of hitting a different gear than maybe they were able to in previous seasons.

Yeah, they've done a, like Rob Blake deserves a lot of credit for the work that he's done here as far as trying to build a second cup contending team around Doughty and Kopitar who by the way are still pretty darn good players. Like it hasn't fallen off. perhaps as quickly as we thought with those guys. So, you know, it's been a long haul.

It's not like this happened overnight, but they've gone to a point where their goal, their objective to tear it down, build it back up, you know, they've achieved it. They just have to take that next step of winning playoff series. They haven't won a playoff series since they won the cup in 2014. And to hit on a couple of your points, I think that they have the best center depth one through four in the league,

whether it's Copatar, Dubois, Dano, Lazot. I don't see much of a drop-off. Obviously, Lazard, there's a drop-off. No, no, don't. Take that back. It's the big four. And you can swap them in any order. Lazot's getting 20 minutes a night.

Yeah. No, I mean, it's really something, because I think Lazot is, you know, one of the best fourth-liners in the league. So when you're saying that about a team that already has three very, very good centermen, that's a huge compliment. And we were talking before about the Leafs and how their lines don't quite make sense,

how you look at them. And you know, you get a headache just trying to figure out how is this all going to work. I think the Kings are almost the opposite of that, where I see their top three lines and they make a ton of sense. Quinton Byfield with Anse Cobotarn, Adrian Kempe, Byfield is now that he's on the wing, which I think is a great spot for him. He's sort of the north-south forechecking guy. He has some finishing ability.

he's obviously the biggest body out of the three. Copatar is the two-way conscience. And then Kempe is just firing shots left, right and center, and has that blazing speed. And then on the second line, Fiala, Dubois, La Faireaire, you've got a mix. These are three different player types. And I think that, you know, it sounds really rudimentary, really elementary, really basic. But the more I watch hockey, the more I realize, like, you can't just throw three players. who can score together,

or three who can playmaking, someone will score out of those three guys. It's like, you need to find your player types and slot them in appropriately in your lineup. And I think that, that Ellie's done a pretty good job of that.

And, you know, it remains to be seen whether or not they have quite enough game-breaking ability to win playoff series and whatnot. But the early returns, whether it's Fiala or Dubois, two more recent additions to the line, lineup, they've looked fantastic so far.

Yeah, maybe it's been unfair to compare them also from that high-end talent perspective to the Oilers, right, losing to them in round one each of the past two years. It's like, oh, well, they don't have as much high-end talent as the Oilers. It's like, well, no one really has McDavid-Andrei Saddle, right? So that's not necessarily a shame. But I think at least now with what you're seeing from that Dubois-Fiala combination with Laverrier, like they can create offense in a bunch of different ways. And last year, that wasn't really the case.

Like when they were good, they were really good, but it was very sort of just a one-step process in terms of just exclusively north-south, shoot off the rush, and try to create that way. And in the postseason, you have to be able to create in different facets, and they've been able to do that so far this season. And so I think it could be different for them moving forward. So I wanted to note that if we go further down the list all the way down to the bottom, number 28 and expected goals share

the Washington Capitals they've been outscored 12 to 3 in their three in their three games so far Nicholas Baxter might hate to single him out because it's amazing that he's still playing

after the injury that he had but 28% expected goal share with him on the ice it's been bleak and poor Spencer Carbary finally gets the opportunity it's a tough one I had them like 30th

I think in watchability rankings before the season and it's looking pretty good because it's been pretty tough to watch them and I don't think there's a lot of reason to believe like listen Obeskin hasn't had a shot on a goal in two straight games now which even at this stage of his career seems almost impossible

I wouldn't expect that to continue but there's just not a lot of reason with the age of this group and the lack of talent or there is talent but just the lack of like how different they are compared to previous years to believe that it's all of a sudden going to turn around this probably is pretty indicative of what they're going to be the rest of the season.

Yeah, in terms of overreactions, this was one I had circled as far as ones that may prove to be not an overreaction down the line. I think most people coming into the season thought the Capitals, given the trajectory of the franchise, how old their roster is, the question marks with Baxter and Kuznetzoff, can they ever get back to what they used to be?

I think a lot of people were like, okay, would you be surprised if they made the playoffs? No. would you be surprised if they didn't make the playoffs? No, it's kind of, you know, there's somewhere around the fringes, but the first few games, I think this could go south real quick as far as the season and, you know, wins and losses. And you mentioned Spencer Carberry. It's, I don't think it'll necessarily be his fault. I think he's a pretty good coach and he's in a bit of a tough situation here as far as what he inherited. But I think, I think he's a pretty good coach. I think,

also management we saw that last year's deadline they were pretty decisive in in trading guys and realizing like okay what we have some of it we can't move and some of it is is you know the ovechkins who are part of this core and are not going anywhere anytime soon um but they also moved on from some guys that they they knew weren't going to bring them to the promise land so i wonder if that switch flips sooner this season uh if in fact what we've seen so far far is what they are over the course of the season and there aren't any big dramatic swings the other way because obviously they're trying to win during this window with Ovechkin, right? And it makes sense. I understand it. I would probably do the same thing. But they also

should try to pick their spots as far as when seasons seem to be out of reach. And if you should try to get whatever you can for your assets and reload in the summer, whether it's free agency or trades and not be married to sort of your role players because that can happen. And it's happened with this team in the past. So they're a pretty interesting team as far as expectations weren't certainly, weren't super high coming in the season. And so far, you know, I have very little faith that they'll turn that around. Okay, let me give two more quick shoutouts on, and let's end this on a more positive note. So one, the Anaheim Ducks, who are winning me back after what was a miserable year last year.

So far, so good on the Greg Conan era. They have eight players in their lineup they set on the broadcast last night who were born in the 2000s, which seems almost impossible to believe. But I guess those guys are already 23 years old at this point. So time is flying. But we got to see with Leo Carlson making his debut come back from injury, him, Zegris and Terry playing together. to two goals at 5-15 and just 12 and a half minutes together. Minchikob and Lecombe on the back end looked very impressive in the early going.

And listen, they beat the hurricanes at home. They gave the stars a really good fight, I thought. Like, starting off with those two teams in Vegas in your first three games over the year is really challenging. And they've held up pretty well. And so I'm not expecting a very successful season, but like last year was so bleak. And at least so far, it looks like they're at least going to play competitive hockey. and allow their young players to play in a situation where they can not only improve,

but we can better evaluate them moving forward. And so that should be the main objective for this season. And if they're going to accomplish that, then it's going to be a huge home run for them. And I think they're well on their way there. So I really like what I've seen from the ducks in the early going. Yeah, props to them too for getting off to a good start after Drysdale signs late, Ziegres signs late.

Sometimes that can snowball into a, rough beginning to a season. So, yeah, there's certainly far from contending for a playoff spot, but even just watching Leo Carlson last night, it's like, on draft night, you're wondering about that pick and you're going, ah, like, did they, not necessarily did they reach, but did they overthink it or something? But then you see the guy play in the NHL for the first time. And you go, no, I think they're on to something here. Yeah, he'll be good.

Last one. So the senators have obviously had a couple, couple of great games. here. They've got a fun contest this weekend against the Detroit Red Wings, but I wanted to shout out of Jake Sanderson, who in his first four games, two goals, three assists with him on the ice at 5-15. They are outscoring teams five to two. Shots are 37-27. And the thing that I wonder, I know it is, we need to get a more ice time. I know that Thomas Shabbat is obviously going to play the most there. He should not be playing like more than six minutes at 5-15 per game more than him. I think they need to bridge that gap. I know they do.

in all situations minutes, but right now Jake Sanderson is playing the 253rd most 5-on-5 minutes per game in the league behind forwards like Alexei Tarpchenko and Philip DiJuseppe. So I think we can bump that up a little bit because he's certainly shown that he's more than capable of handling it. I love the way he moves out there. Obviously, the offensive instincts with the puck, but even his positioning without it and ability to recover and disrupt has been really exciting. and so he looks fantastic

and I want to see him play as much as possible. So I know the past couple of games it's tough to quibble with the results they've had, but let's get him out there even more and see what we can get out of it. Yeah, I talked to a couple of his teammates at the end of last year, Alex DeBringit, and I believe it was, yeah,

Drake Batherson. And what they were blown away by of Jake Sanderson as a rookie was how, well, one, how long he is and how he uses his length on defense. Two, how they knew there was an offensive explosion coming. And three, that his transition to the NHL from college was quite seamless. And he just, he has this sort of this calmness to him, this poise to him,

that I think will really complement who else they have on the back end there, whether it's Shabbat or Zub or. Yeah, it's they're just I saw there was a ranking of the draft 2021 I want to say or 2020. Where did Sanderson go the other day? And Stutzla and Sanderson went one and two in the redraft, which is pretty phenomenal.

And I guess a feathering up here, Dorian's hat there. Yeah. All right, John, I'll let you plug some stuff on the way out. What have you been working on? give us a little teaser. What are you in the process of working on? What's got your eye? Yeah, I mean, I would just have people check me out on Twitter

at MATIS at J-O-H-N. And, you know, just wrote a big story on Y Johnston, just wrote a big story on Drew Dowdy and working on some other features coming down the pike soon. So your best bet is to follow me or just keep it locked on my Twitter feed because that's where all my stories come out. Awesome, buddy. Well, this is a blast.

I'm glad we got to have you on again. We'll do it again shortly, I'm sure. Thank you to everyone for listening to the PDOCast. It was another fun week here. Smash that five-star button wherever you listen. You can send in questions for future editions of mailbags. If you want to get involved with those, we always take questions from our listeners. They're always good.

So keep them coming. And we'll be back next week with plenty more of the HockeyPedioCast. As always streaming on this.