The Hockey PDOcast - Our All-Star Teams Through the First Half of the 2025–2026 NHL Season

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by John Matisz to construct first 1st, 2nd, and 3rd team All-Stars through the first half of the 2025-2026 NHL regular season. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Regressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey P.D.O.Cast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey P.D.O.cast. My name is Dimitri Filippovich. And join me, he's my good buddy, John Mattis. John, what's going on, man? not a whole lot Christmas is coming World Juniors is coming and yeah it's been a long week but this is getting me fired up you got me fired up in our conversation in our DMs I feel like you're

you're amped for this I am you know what else is coming up the roughly the midseason mark of the NHL season we're still maybe a couple weeks out but teams are going to be hitting the 40 game mark here soon which means we're about halfway through the regular season and I thought that was a good point for us to do a fun little exercise.

We did this a couple years ago, I believe, and it was kind of constructing our all-NHL teams or our all-star teams. And we're going to do the top three. We're going to be disciplined about assigning correct positions in terms of handedness and where guys actually play. And I feel like it's going to serve as like a good sort of time capsule or maybe something we can bookmark for down the road

and revisiting it at the end of the season. to kind of have a good feel for where we were at at this point of the season. I think it's important for us to distinguish as well that we're going to try to capture the contributions and production and play of players through this first half of the season. So these lists aren't necessarily going to be our projections for what it's going to look like at the end of the season, obviously with a lot of season left and a trade like the Quinn Hughes one, obviously, I think boosting the value of a lot of the Minnesota wild players in particular. A lot of these guys are probably going to wind up.

shooting up once they get more games stacked together. But I thought this would be a really fun way for us to kind of get into the holiday break and revisit what's gone on so far this season. And so we're going to start with our first team. I was wondering kind of what made more sense, whether we want to build up the dramatic hype of starting with the third team and then people figuring out, all right, who's going to wind up making it at the very top. But let's start with the best players because you and I generally tend to go long,

run out of time, and then have to, you know, scramble and jam every. everything in at the end. So I think we're unanimous, right? First team, all-star center is going to be Nathan McKinnon, who's atop the, the Hart Trophy race as well, and is having an all-time season in terms of pretty much every single offensive metric. Every time I tune on on a on a abs game, I just, he's toying with the opposition. Like, it seems so easy for him right now to put up points and you know we talk a lot about aging curves and you know oh once you hit 30 it's it's not necessarily downhill but it's much more difficult to maintain your level the guy's 30 right now and he's arguably having the best season of his career i mean it's not even really

arguable at this point you know he's got 28 goals 30 assists 58 points and 33 games to put him on pace he hasn't missed a game so an 82 game pace of 70 goals which would obviously top Austin Matthews as sort of the goal scoring season of the century, 75 assists and 145 points. It's just wild and like, you know, you've talked about McKinnon at length on this podcast over the years, but like just the sort of psychopathic nature in which he plays hockey is just something to behold and like, you know, even just you look at something as simple as five on five, goal differential. Colorado is 48 goals for, 12 goals against with him on the ice.

I mean, it's unbelievable what he's doing. And I'm very curious to see as the year goes along and as they keep racking up wins and kind of inching closer and closer towards having like a historic regular season in terms of the win loss record and point total and how few regulation losses they have. They're going to bump into spots like they had earlier this week in Seattle where the Cracken were playing really well, kind of give. them all they could handle they were up in the third period and at some point it kind of felt like mckinan like any great player would generally do almost decided like we're not going to lose

to this team tonight and put the team on his back and through sheer force as he often does jammed a couple goals in with just violent rips from the left circle and they wound up winning that game and so they haven't even really over these first 40 games i can only recall a handful of occasions where they've really been pushed or tested throughout a game and it's felt like he's had to that level. Generally, they've been scoring what they've scored nine times in the first 90 seconds of game so far. So they've just been building these early leads and kind of snowballing from there and you can coast the rest of the game. They haven't been sort of backed into that corner. And when they do, I imagine we're going to see an even higher level from them. And so that's pretty

exciting. I imagine, you know, especially if they lock up the first in the central and home ice throughout, they're probably going to take a bigger picture view of trying to prepare for the playoffs and making sure everyone's healthy and rested. So maybe that'll bring some of these paces down a little bit, but he's also such a freak that I imagine he could get there anyway, and it'll be fun to see if he can flirt with that 70 goal total like Matthews did a couple years ago. A couple other stats for you. They're up 48 to 12 in his 521 515 minutes. The Cracken as a team have scored 48 515 goals themselves in 1,500 minutes. The Kings are at 52, so he's nearly matching them himself. That top line is scoring 5.4 goals per hour of 515, which is matching their

own team's power play production as well. And so he hasn't even necessarily done it on the back of a lethal power play either. And so maybe if they can unlock that a little bit, it'll get him a few extra cheap points along the way as well. Number one left wing spot. I'm curious for your take, because I had about four or five guys that I felt certainly merited a long look here. I ultimately settled on one pretty confidently, but I'll give you the floor here since I, uh, I introduced us with McKinnon in the first slot so you can go with, uh, first line left wing. Yeah, Jason Robertson takes the cake here and not by much. I don't feel great about it.

And you mentioned sort of like we're not projecting. If I were to project, I think Carol Caprizov would be a pretty good, like I say, if I'm betting on, I don't even know if you can bet on an All-Star and the year All-Star teams. But if I was, I would put some decent money on Coral Caprizov to be the top spot on the left wing for the All-Star teams. But I don't know. I just feel like Jason Robertson has had maybe.

be a down ballot heart trophy season like I'd put him in my top 10 but you know would he be fifth or sixth or seven I don't know but I just feel like when you look at the players on Dallas and they're they're a team that doesn't necessarily need an MVP but when you look at the the individual contributions it's like him and me or hasten have kind of stood above the rest for the most part um so that's what does it for me because there isn't one guy I mean obviously meiko rant and I throw on there. But there isn't one guy at left wing that is just a shoe in like, you know, a McKinnon or, you know, there's a couple other positions that the number one spot is pretty obvious. Who did you have? Well, first off, I'm curious. You mentioned the voting, um, just for

transparency, you're obviously a member of the pro hockey writers association. Do you guys vote on these end of season, all-star teams? You do, right? Yes, correct. Okay, cool. Well, there you go. Maybe I can, uh, we can influence you in a certain direction and steer you, um, or at least get an insight into your thought process here as well obviously a lot subject to change as the air goes along i had robertson as well um he's pushing for a 50 goal 100 point pace it's been awesome to see him bounce back into the physical form he was in during that 22 23 season when he went off for 46 goals and 109 points he had a couple down seasons because of that foot injury and foot surgery that he had that slowed him down a little bit he's back to generating shots at that same rate

he once did he's only taken one penalty so far in nearly 700 minutes. The only players on ice for more goals per hour, all situations than in this season, are the aforementioned McKinnon and his teammate Rupert Hins, who's played like 200 less minutes than he has so far this year. And we've spoken a lot about the stars 5-15 metrics and how they're lagging a bit behind some of the other contenders, kind of hovering around the break-even mark at this point of the season. That has not applied to him. He is sporting a 55% expected goal and high danger chance share on this team and driving the bus and doing so. with a sub 50%

offensive zone start rate as well and so he's such a play driver and he's so awesome and in particular in that lull a couple weeks ago when they had all those injuries up front it felt like he put the team on his back and kind of carry them offensively

and went off from a goal scoring perspective and so I think he's been immensely valuable as you noted my right wing spot here goes to Nikita Kuturov on pace for a fourth straight 80 plus assist season despite the fact

that, you know, the two main sort of offensive pillars that I think have contributed to that previous success, and he's a big reason for why they've been so successful in that regard. But Braden points goal scoring, which has not been the case this year. I think he has only five so far at this point of the season, has missed some time as well. And the power play, which is generally top three to five, is down to 23rd this season. And despite that, he keeps coming along. I was watching a game recently against the penguins that they played at home and they wound up losing it. But I felt like watching it, he just had the puck on his stick the entire time. And then I think on their next broadcast, the lightning commentary team noted how they went back

and tracked it. And he had touched the puck 87 times over the course of that one game. And he's not a guy who holds on to it either. Right. So it's a lot of like one touches and like quickly getting into a teammate and getting it back. And so it just feels like he orchestrates everything. He almost plays a different brand of hockey than anyone else out there. And he's such a puppet master and everything flows through him. And he started ripping off these three, four point games here recently. And so I'd expect

him to join McKinnon and McDavid atop the scoring list after a relatively slow start by his standards. And so, I mean, he's just such a freak offensively in terms of the way he facilitates everything for the lightning. Yeah, not to be boring, but that's who I had in my right wing spot, the top

spot there. And part of it came down to you know, I just had other guys better suited for two and three. Like the sort of tiebreaker with Kutrov was I, it's wild how much of an offensive engine he is. I mean, he's, he has a ridiculous 4.5 slot passes per game right now. And for all the talk of what McKinnon's doing, McKinnon's second at 3.7. So Kutrov's almost firing one extra slot pass per game.

And that may seem insignificant. But if you think about how the way hockey is played now, I mean, Kutrov is basically just feeding his teammates high quality chances all game. And, you know, obviously this is a guy who has his flaws defensively, but I just think with the other right wingers and the types of seasons they're having Kutrov and the sort of workload that he takes on as the offensive catalyst in Tampa Bay in Tampa Bay was overwhelming for me. And he realistically could have at least another five to ten assists on the season. A lot of those slop passes have unfortunately gone all of your brooks around on the power play. And he just has been so snakebidden, he's finally scored a couple recently. But he's shooting like five, six percent this year, despite all those looks that he's serving up on a silver platter for him. And so, yeah, Kucherell is just doing what he's done for years now.

Okay, let's get into the defenseman then. I'll give you the left-handed D-man and then I'll go with the right-handed counterpart. Sure. So this is kind of tough because I've got two in mind. I'm not going to mention the other guy because we'll bring him up later. But I think I go with Miro Haskin in here at the top with my lefties. Well, or do you want to make him a righty? Well, he does play the right side primarily.

Now, I actually use that as a feather in his cap because it's so impressive that he does. So it's such a high level and accommodates the lack of right-handed options for the stars and has done so historically. But you're right. In terms of team building, if you were starting from scratch, he is a lefty. So I'll give it to you here, but I had him on my right side. Let's do it right. I'll go with my first leftia, Zach Werencki, then. Guys on just a disgusting heater right now, seven goals, 19 assists in his last 19 games.

That's a bit of a weird cutoff, but that's since November 10th, like a substantial amount of the season. And I just feel like considering what else Columbus has on their blue line, Werensky falls into that sort of MVP, caliber type of player when he is on. And, you know, of all like the chatter of Quinn Hughes being being moved and like, oh, he could go to every team in the league. Like everyone should be putting in offers to the Vancouver Canucks before they

ultimately traded them to Minnesota. There were a couple teams where it's like, you know, would it make sense if Columbus did it? I don't know if it does because you've got, you know, a Quinn Hughes like player in Zack Wrenski. Would it be great to have both of them? Yes, but it seems almost a little redundant. And I don't know, this is less about sort of his performance this season, but there's something about Zach Werenski that I really appreciate from like a efficiency perspective.

Like it looks like he's just not putting in a ton of effort when he's out there because he's so smooth and so sort of effortless. And that's more of an aesthetic thing. But that always jumps out to me where he puts up a ton of points, major work out, major workhorse, really a driver of offense from the back end for Columbus. And he's having a hell of a season. He is. He's, I added down, just such a workhorse. He plays 26, 42 per game, which is behind only Quinn Hughes. He went for 23 goals and 82 points last year and everyone was marveling at that output and how he put it all together and really just realized all the potential that he had flashed in the past and was done in by injuries in previous seasons. He's on pace again for 27 goals and 90 points, topping those two. The blue jackets are scoring 3.3 goals per hour with him on the ice 515 and under two with. without him. And the on-off splits are just ridiculous for him, as you'd expect, because he drives everything and facilitates everything offensively, especially off the rush. That game

against the Ducks recently where he accounted for pretty much the entirety of their offense, and it was two identical rush goals where he's just kind of effortlessly stick handling around traffic and then beating the goalie cleanly, a skill that he has in his bag that very few other defensemen have. Sport logic has him leading the league in loose puck recoveries as well, which make sense considering how much he plays and how much ground he covers. You know, this Blue Jacket season has been relatively disappointing for the most part. I had high hopes for them after how fun they were last year. They've still flashed certain elements that I think are bullish for them moving forward,

but the standings haven't really reflected that. And, you know, flash forward to next year, if this kind of continues and they don't take a next step, I think we might be having a conversation about Werenki's future because he's going to be kind of in a similar spot to where Hughes was before he got traded a couple weeks ago. And so hopefully the Blue Jackets can realize some of this potential they have with all their young forwards in particular and go on a bit of a run here. All right. Well, this is great because I get the right-handed slot and it's the easiest call on this list probably. And that's Kail McCarr, who I don't even have that many notes on because I think everyone is familiar with his

track record right now on pace for 25 goals and 100 points playing 25 plus minutes. I think obviously when him and McKinnon are out there, it's preposterous offensively. I think he's actually done a really good job this year in the minutes away from McKinnon as well. I know that's been a topic of conversation in the past with those with or without you numbers for him. When he plays with Nelson and more of a defensive assignment, he's held up there as well. And so he's just such a driver and such a specimen in terms of what he can do athletically out there. And he's a one of one in that regard. So I don't know if you have any other notes piggybacking off of that, but I think it's pretty self-explanatory.

Yeah, like I feel like the McKinnon. in rant is a little more interesting than McCar. Macar, it's like, okay, same old story, but in like the best way possible. Ilya Sorokin for me is pretty clearly the number one goalie here, and I had him atop my Vesna list. We're not,

I was thinking we'd also do individual awards today, and maybe we can sprinkle in some of that chatter once we talk about some of these individual players in terms of where we'd have them on our list. There's just too much ground for us to cover in 50 minutes to get into that as well. But I did a show with Woodley last week about him, kind of documenting some of the adjustments in his game,

maybe technically since they made that goalie switch, bringing in his previous KHL goalie coach to work with him with the Islanders. Sport logic has him at plus 31 goal save above expected right now, which is just a significant gap between him and everyone else, an 8.83 safe percentage on just inner slot shots. The league average for all shots is 898 this year, so he's just barely behind on the most high-danger opportunities you can face. And he's, you look at natural statured.

He's faced so many more high-danger chances against than any other goalie this season. And that's because the Islanders are 32nd, inexpected goals against 30-second and their slot shots allowed. They've opened up their offense with Matthew Schaefer there to attack more off the rush and run and gun. And that's put more of an emphasis on Sorokin holding up when action comes back the other way on the counter. and he's been more than up to the task. I mean, what he's done in December,

I know he lost recently and gave up a couple goals to the Red Wings, but that stretch he rattled off where he just completely befuddled the lightning for three straight games and then beat the Aves and the Golden Knights in that stretch as well was about as good from a quality of competition perspective as you're going to see for any goalie, and he's been phenomenal this season.

Yeah, and like the safe percentage, the raw safe percentage isn't anything too special, but it's it's the context of the environment around him and listen like i i really have been drawn to quality starts be that stat that sport logic produces just to be like an indicator of like is this guy giving his team a chance to win and sarokin 19 quality starts in 23 starts so i mean that's a very high percentage for our workload like that at this point in the season so everything you said is 100% on the market mark and it's just funny how you look at the safe percentages across the league.

And he still has a good one, he's whatever, 9-10. But, you know, there's a lot of people that would be picking someone else in this number one spot. Yeah, 9-10 in today's game is really good. I was putting together in my Vesna list. And as a very close honorable mention, I had Jeremy's wait a minute. I think he's like 9-09. And in the past, you'd be like, that's not that impressive.

And then you look and the quality of shots he's facing and the volume of it. And in today's game, that is pretty good. So we certainly need to adjust there. Right. I think that was all pretty unanimously agreed upon for the most part. This is where it gets really fun. We're going to get into the second team. All-Stars, I'm going to give you the floor here for the center position down the middle. I'm going to go with Mackin-Solabrini here. Whoa, nice.

I just wrote about him, so I'm in that sort of headspace. And you know what? We originally were going to do awards. So again, my headspace was in more Hart Trophy. I think he's behind McKinnon and the Hart Trophy. rankings or at least discussion in my opinion. But, you know, my my sort of main thesis in the story that I just wrote was that, you know, he's leveled up from this guy who we knew is going to be a franchise cornerstone. Okay, super stardom, you know, probably hits it, but you know, not guaranteed. And then we look up two and a half months later and he's like, what, a top

10 player in the world arguably? It depends on sort of your mileage and how much you weight you put into, you know, just track record. I mean, at the end of the day, he's only been in the NHL for 104 games but it's just not it's not just the counting stats with this guy like he is third in scoring right now he does have four game winning goals but he just impacts the game in so many ways with such little help i mean sure he's got something to work with especially compared to last year with the sharks beefing their the roster a little bit but at the end of the day he's he's not exactly he doesn't exactly have a proper running mate at this point and his some of his underlying numbers, you know, on evolving hockey and whatnot are not great. But I don't know.

I don't know if it's, if it's him. Maybe it is to some extent, but I find that, you know, when I watch a Sharks game, he's, he's so assertive and in sort of like a, if he has the puck, he's making something happen. If he doesn't have the puck, he has great puck support or he's all over the puck carrier. He's always making something happen, which is very MVP like. And hey, he has a point on 50% of San Jose's goals. And if you break it down to primary points, he has a primary point on 42% of San Jose's goals. And to compare that to McKinnon,

McKinnon has a point on 42% of Colorado's goals. So it's almost like, Celebrini has been in some ways more of an MVP for the sharks. And of course, the avalanche have, have Keel McCar there as an excellent number two to Nathan McKinnon. So, you know, there's other guys here, and I'm sure, you know, who you had there is a guy who's been popping off and has been, you know, at top of the list of best players in the world for a long time. But I'm just sort of enthralled by, by Celebrini in the season he's having.

No, listen, I respect it. It's a very ambitious call. I think certainly recently the highlight real plays, the flair for dramatic and comebacks as well. It feels like when you watch a shark's game, and part of this is a byproduct of the strength of the team relatively. But there's like these downstretches where they just don't have the puck for an extended period of time and nothing's happening. And then he comes out there and you almost perk up at the edge of your seat because you feel like something special is about to happen. And he often rewards us. With that, I think the sheer volume of what he's accumulating right. I was downright staggering.

You mentioned third in total points, first and primary assists. Even further, I mean, third in controlled exits, sixth in controlled entries, third in end-to-end rushes. Like he is a one-man transition machine and does so much of the heavy lifting in San Jose. So certainly if they can keep being this risky and hanging around a playoff spot in a week Pacific, I think the momentum for that is going to build. I add, as you alluded to, an oiler center here on my list, it's not the one you you're probably thinking, though, because it's Leon Dreys Heidel.

Okay. And first off, I think maybe this is a little biased because I just think he's so cool. He's probably the coolest player in the league right now. He hits in Pittsburgh, he hits the 1,000 point mark for his career. The team comes out to celebrate with him. The game resumes. And 14 seconds later, he already gets 0.1,000 and 1 in his career keeps going. I think he finishes with a thousand three by the end of that game.

And then afterwards, all the shirts with his teammates wearing it. with him smoking a dart and all that stuff it's just phenomenal stuff we're going through a second straight season now where the oilers have been better with him on the ice 5-1-5 without macdavid then alternatively in the minutes where macdavits played without dry saddle and when you're kind of trying to separate the two in terms of who's driving a little bit more these are the stats so the two of them have played 250 minutes 5-1-5 together goals are 10-10 they're breaking even McDavid's played 367 minutes without drycidal

they're up 20 to 19 and for a while they were actually losing those minutes and then Hyman and Nugent Hopkins came back and they've been on a tear since drycidal without McDavid the Oilers are up 24 to 12 and he does it

with inferior line mates right as I said McDavid is now playing with R&H and Hyman he plays with Put Coles in Matthew Savoy Jack Rossovich before he got hurt with inferior defense partners because McDavid often plays with

Blue Shard and Hohm and then that leaves Dr. Seidel to play with the nurse pairing eats up more defensive zone starts as well relatively and just keeps churning out these results and I feel like that's been overlooked a little bit because I think we often just lump the two of them together as kind of a 1A, 1B or just like one entity in terms of playing off of each other and they do so on the power play but I think what Dry Seidel is down at 5-1-5 in steering this team in the right direction when McDavid

it hasn't been out there has been a big reason for why they've taken the leap they have as an organization the past couple years. And there's still a lot of work to do in terms of the depth around those guys. But I just feel like he's such an engine right now. And it's, I think, going a little bit underappreciated because everyone focuses on the point totals and such. But he's doing so much other heavy lifting defensively and in transition and kind of connecting plays for guys who otherwise would not be producing without him. Hey, that's a good show. I'm certainly underappreciating him, on your good pitch there.

So does that close out the centers, and should we shout out an honorable mention here? Well, let me give you one more note on Dry Seidel, which works in his favor. He's figured out a way to hack the system right now in a couple ways. One is in the face-off circle,

where you look and he's up to like over 57% in terms of success rate winning draws. And that's because he either wins the draw or he gets kicked out for trying to cheat to win it, As we've talked about, no one gets kicked out of the face off circle more than he does, which I find hilarious. And the other is like he's just year over year, been a 19 to 20% shooter, which is ridiculous. And that's because he either snipes a top corner from a bad angle or wildly misses the net trying to do so. And so I love both of those two elements as well where he's so efficient when he converts in the opportunity and when he doesn't, it's like someone else's task.

Are we not doing, we're not going to do a third team as well here? Or do you want to just cut it off it too? Sorry, I was just, I guess because I hinted so strongly at McDavid there that it was obvious that I was going to go with McDavid. Yeah, we can save the honorable mentions down the middle for once we get into the third team. Let's close out the second team before we go to break. I'll give you the floor here for left wing. I'm kind of torn here, but I'm going to go with Brandon Hagel. Just a big engine for Tampa in sort of the finer details.

And, you know, if I go from Robertson to him, there's another guy that I'm considering, but I don't know, maybe it's just personal preference kind of to the same, you know, down the same road as you were taking with dry saddle where I just would love Brandon Hagel on my team any day of the week. And if he's having a good enough season to justify this spot, I give it to him. And like, listen, he's he's got 31 points and 32 games. That's pretty good considering what's been going on. Tampa Bay and he plays a ton of minutes, you know, he's obviously a huge part of their penalty kill. So yeah, it's a bit of a weird position where there aren't a ton of like high level options at left wing. So I'm going haggle there. I had him on my third team and I think you're on the right track there. He's such an animal. He's a walking scoring chance. Um, you know, for the season, he's barely top 40 in total points, but he started the year with just one point in his first games. He's got 18 goals and 30 points and 25 since then. He draws a ton of penalties. As you mentioned on the PK, he plays like two and a half minutes per game there on the third best ranked unit. And they give up

around four goals per hour with him on the ice there. And then five on five, especially with some of the injuries they've had. They've leaned on him playing with Gutrov and Sorrelli is their top line for an extended stretch here. And they've just been downright dominant. I think they're in the in the 60s in terms of shares. So I love Brandon Hagel and I'm all for bumping them up. I had Carol Caprizov, who you referenced earlier, 50-goal pace. Yet again, the point total is relatively low in terms of what you'd expect. But I think that's largely because he has only three secondary assists so far. And he's done this with just 15 games of Matt Succarello so far.

He's been playing recently, mostly with a 21-year-old center who is playing his first season in North America and bringing him along for the ride, although I do like to nil or not quite a bit. But especially now with Hughes there and all the stuff they're going to unlock offensively. I think you hinted at this by the end of the season with the point totals he's going to wind up at and where the wild are going to be in the standings. I think he's going to be a pretty considerable favorite to be on the second team. And I kind of got ahead of it here a little bit. On my right wing, I had Miko Ranjanin.

And he's been totally feral this season for whatever reason. He has 67 penalty minutes, which I think is behind only Logan Stanley leading the league. He's taken 21 penalties and he's drawn 21 penalties. But he's on pace for 110 points. he's a big reason why they have the second ranked power play in the league. He had that game this week that kind of illustrates what he's capable of as a dual

threat against L.A. where he just breaks the game open with a beautiful cross-seem pass and then this move and finish off the rush. And I think a reason why his 5-15 totals are low and I just had this conversation with our pal Sean Shapiro on a Patreon episode, but

he's played so much with Sam Steele and he's clearly shouldn't be playing in that role But for whatever reason, Gun Galitzin, partly due to injury, has been leaning on them to do so. And so you look at the splits. They're scoring two goals per hour, 5-1-5 with those guys together. When Randen and plays with a better player, it's up to 3.5. And so I think that tells you all you need to know in terms of why the 5-1-5 production is where it is.

Let's take our break here, actually, real quick. And then when we come back, we'll jump right back in. We're going to do the defenseman for the second team. And then we're going to close out with our third team all-stars. You're listening to the HockeyPETO guest streaming on the SportsNair Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the Hockey Ocast, joined by John Mattis. John, let's keep it going. We're doing our second team All-Stars.

We've gone through the forwards. We're going to do left side of the blue line and then right side after. I'll give you the floor here for your second team, all NHL left-shot defensemen. so for me it's between an offensive juggernaut and sort of work horse shutdown guy and since this is just just for fun and like i like kind of throwing out some some interesting names let's go with j j moseph here like okay so 175 defensemen have played 300 or more minutes at five on five this year and moses first in goals against per 60 with 1.08 next is Matt Roy and Will Borgon at 1.3.4. So not only is he first. He's first by a lot. And he's plus 17 at 5 on 5 with a 59% expected goals. Like it's kind of wild what he's doing. And this is all within the context of Tampa Bay having an HL Blue Line for a lot of the season, unfortunately. But it's really elevated Moser both from a usage and deployment perspective.

But also, Sean a light on him in terms of, like, his value to the blue line when a guy like headman is out or Chernak or McDonough. So, you know, I didn't come into this season thinking I'd be talking much about J.J. Moser. And if I were submitting a ballot today, I'd probably have to give it a little more thought. But I just love the idea of Moser, like, absolutely popping off as a defensive stalwart this year. I mean, he's been far and away Tampa Bay's best defenseman this season, even before Victor Headman got heard, and I don't think a lot of people appreciate that or are aware of it. So I love the shout.

I'm a little bit jealous because I feel like you're taking all the guys here that I love, and I'm just too cowardly to bump this high up my list, but you're just going for it. And I deeply respect that. I mean, I feel like I've talked about Moser more than anyone else nationally. He's been ridiculous. I think what him and Darren Radish have done together has been absolutely spectacular.

And he's a big reason for why Tampa Bay is as good defensively as they've been, despite all those injuries. I had Matthew Schaefer here. Nine goals worth amongst defensemen, 23 points. for 34 games. The usage, October, 22, 20 per game, November, 24, 14, December, 25, 5-1-5 metrics. They're up 30 to 18 with him on the ice, 54% shot share. He's got a plus 11 penalty differential despite being a defenseman. I believe Connor McDavid's the only guy with a more positive differential than him. He's been doing it the past, whatever, six weeks in a matchup role where

they really leaned on him against the other team's best players, and he's looked apart. He's just such a driver offensively, and I'm giving him credit for Sorokin's been phenomenal. And as I said, he'd be my pick for the Vesna right now. But just in terms of transforming this organization and stepping in and totally changing the vibe, but also the way they play, that's attributed a lot to, I think, what Schaefer's brought to the table. So we almost need to stop talking about him as like,

this is amazing for an 18-year-old defenseman and started viewing it through the lens. So this is remarkable for any defenseman because he's been, he's been that good. All right, what do you got on the right side? Okay, let's go with Haskinen, because I mentioned. of before, erroneously, as a lefty. But, yeah, I don't know. So he's the top defenseman on the second best team. And, you know, as we've seen for the last three or four years,

just can totally handle that offside, you know, deployment. And Harley's been out for portions of the season. So there's been a little more heavy lifting to be done. And he's putting up enough points. Like, I considered someone else. who's also having an outstanding defensive season, but I just kind of like tiebreaker, I'll give it to Hayeskin

because he's put up some more points than the other guy. So, you know, I wouldn't say there's anything remarkably new about the Hayeskin story, but like he continues to be, you know, right in that top five conversation for best defensemen in the league. And actually, I was reading some coverage of Quinn Hughes in the trade. And obviously, like, nine times out of ten, people say, you know, he's a top two defenseman in the world.

I saw the odd person write top three. I'm like, hmm, are they talking about Hayeskinen? Because I don't know, is he like definitively the number three or are there other guys in the in the mix there? But I just wanted to point that out as sort of like a funny thing where most people defaulted to top two. But like some people are like, hey, what about that other guy? Yeah, he's fourth in scoring amongst defensemen playing over 26 minutes per game,

which was the third most. Him and Lendell together have been phenomenal, 56% expected goal share, 57% high danger chance share and crushing their minutes. And then, as I said, the featherness gap of playing on the offside and how difficult that is of a task and how easy he makes it look doesn't take penalties. A race is so much. So, yeah, I think it's a great shout. I had him on my third team. And it was a coin flip for me.

But if I were constructing my Norris ballot right now, it would be McCarr is certainly up top. And then I think for number two, I'd have to go with my second team, right shot defenseman. And that's Mo Sider, who's with or without. you numbers are about as extreme as you're going to see in this sport. He's played the fifth most minutes at 5-15. He's eaten up the seventh most defensive zone starts in that time. He does so with extremely heavy match-up assignments because McClellan just leans on him and Larkin to play against the other team's best players, which a lot of teams don't do

with their best or most likely guys to score offensively. And despite all that, up 36 to 24. When he's off the ice, they're down 53 to 29 at 515. He's got a 60% shot share, 60% expected goal share, 58% high danger chance share, just absolutely dominating. And the point totals are a bit lower relatively, but 24 and 35, it's been an uptick in December. And on that power play,

I think he could get there to a point where he's considered a legitimate Norris finalist and the market currently has him like plus 50,000. Now I don't think he's going to win this award because it's going to beam a car. But if the Red Wings make the playoffs and he keeps doing this type of stuff under this workload, I think he's going to vault his way into that conversation in the top three and so it's kind of just a testament to I think the development in his game

what him and Edvenson have done. I know Dom at the Athletic has done a lot of good work documenting this in his net rating stat he's neck and neck with McCarr in terms of value provided to his team. Him and Edvinson is a pair are right there with like I think

Jake Sanderson and Artem Zub as the stingiest defense pair who plays matchup minutes and so Sider's been phenomenal and I had him just above his But I think Hayskenen is a totally fine shot for this punt. Yeah. Hesider was a guy I was referring to that had sort of a similar story.

But I picked Hayskinin over him because of the points. And then for goalie, I had Logan Thompson here. Is that the same? Yeah. Plus 23 goals, you above expected. 9.22 say a percentage, 47 goals against in 23 starts. He's just doing it yet again for a second straight season. And should be team Canada's starting goalie, in my opinion.

All right. let's close out with the third team. So neither was about Connor McDavid right now. And I think this is a pretty clear spot for him. Were you going to mix it up and throw a wrench in it with someone else? Or are you in agreement there? No, no. I had McDavid-Cannan Cellebrini McDavid.

Sorry, McKinnon-Celabrini-McDavid. But the guy that I was mentioning before, I just wanted to shout O'Connor Bedard in terms of like the guy goes down. It's really unfortunate in terms of like where his season was going, the sort of dueling, you know, a huge breakout with Celebrini. Hopefully he's back relatively soon because he's just had a phenomenal season and he was certainly in the mix at one point to be one of my top three centers. Yeah, it's hilarious what the standard we hold to McDavid is, right?

Because after his quote unquote slow start, he just rips off this stretch to begin December with just one four point outburst after another, just doing whatever he wanted in those games in particular at Toronto and then at Pittsburgh this week and right now he's back up there with McKinnon for the Art Ross and I imagine that's going to be the case moving forward as I said

since R&H and Hyman have come back they're dominating a 515 as you'd expect and I think you're seeing more aggression from him trying to drive to the net and finish himself as well he's up to 20 goals already it's very reminiscent of the time he just decided to score 64 goals because he wanted to

and he's got that in his bag and so it seems like he's on another one of those missions and I wouldn't be surprised to see him back up there yet again. Third team left wing. Now, I already said I had, I had Hegel here on my list, so I've already checked that off. Who do you have for yourself? We have the same three guys, just a little jumble. Got it.

So I wanted Robertson, Hegel, Caprizov. Got it. Yeah, other guys I considered were, I think Matt Boldie's been phenomenal. He plays some right wing when he plays with Erick and Caprizov together. I also wanted to shout out Brad Marchand, who. at 37 years old is second in the league in 5-1-5 goals behind just Nathan McKinn. And, you know, they put him with, with Bennett and Brahegey. And after a slow start for those two guys, that line has been on fire recently

and a big reason why Florida's winning games again. So those are the guys that I considered. The right wing is interesting. So as I said, I had ranching in on my second team. Who do you have here for yourself? So for third team, right? Yes. I like the idea of picking Mark Stone here

I know he's only played 16 games and that's kind of crazy but like he also has put up 1.56 points per game I mean it's kind of crazy you know there's other options but I don't know why but I just I default to this like creative hockey savant and how he's sort of maybe you know kept an eye on certain projections of team Canada and then came back and was like no

Let's shut down all this talk about me not making the team and I'm the guy. That's fair. I mean, I valued the workload here on my list just because I feel like playing half the games there is a tough thing to overcome in terms of the value you provided to your team because that's a significant portion of the season so far. Every time he bumps into someone and he did so on Wednesday against New Jersey, I'm like, oh, God, is he going to be out for another three weeks here? But when he's on the ice, I mean, his impact is still as a.

as it's ever been just so good at knocking pucks away, setting teammates up. I think what he does down low on that power play as well is phenomenal in terms of allowing everything to flow smoothly for one of the best power play units in the league. So I think that's fair from a skill

perspective. I had David Pasternak on my list just because of how important him and geeky have been to keeping the Bruins afloat so far. He missed a couple games recently but the volume of not only the looks he gets for himself, but how much he sets up for his teammates as well

and how difficult that environment is for him to produce the way he still is. I think he's been phenomenal again, and it's easy to overlook it because it's happening during this Bruin season, but I think Pastor Nex phenomenal. I consider Sam Reinhardt as well, who I think is just such a valuable player and is so good in the PK in particular and started scoring goals again.

But that's who I had on my list. Is there anyone else who wanted to shout out in terms of honorable mentions or guys you considered for the right wing? I considered De Brinket, but I don't know. I like the pastor next out there as like who I probably would have went with next. All right. So the defenseman then. I'll let you go with with the left side. Yeah, I'm going to go with Chikrin. He's got league leading, at least among defensemen, 12 goals. He's just so important to what they're doing there at five on five, some pretty good underlying numbers. And I just, I don't know. It, when

I look around the league, you know, from the left side, okay, Morrissey, actually that's a pretty good decision, you know, Sanderson, you could have, I could have went with them, but I don't know, I appreciate what, what Chikrin's done so far in terms of his importance to that blue line. And I just think that like Washington's such a good team, like, I don't know if they're underrated necessarily, but like, I think they could make some noise here. And he's one of their best players. So yeah, I didn't overthink it too much, but Chikrin's my guy there. Yeah, I strongly consider Chikrin, Shea, Theodore, Josh Morrissey. I guess I'm just going through Team Canada's list of left shop defensemen. I consider Jake Sanderson as well because of what him and Zubb have done

and his volume in terms of retrievals and stuff in particular and how efficient he is with it is off the charts. I went with Quinn Hughes, though, and I struggle with this because like he's still second in Norris odds behind Kyle McCar and you watch the first couple games of him in Minnesota and how fun it's going to be and how productive everyone's going to be and I imagine by season's end it's going to be pretty clear and he's probably going to be on the first team with all due respect to Zach Wrenzky in the season he's having.

I docked it a little bit just because as I've spoken about on the show and I don't think this was his fault because the talent situation in Kuber was so dire and he was clearly just trying to have to make it work but there were a certain moments of like a bit too much hero ball and kind of forcing stuff and being a bit overly heliocentric in terms of everything flowing through him and stuff bogging down a little bit and then sometimes the effort lagging a little bit as they're kind of going through the motions as a team and listen it was just such a terrible situation for everyone involved so I'm not going to hold that against him. You watch him in Minnesota and he's clearly still

absolutely phenomenal but even despite that and some of the defensive metrics being down all the sport logic stuff for him in terms of offensive zone possession time, stretch passes, his efficiency in terms of lack of turnover despite that volume is still pretty much

number one in the league across the board and now using him with Faber loading up that five-man unit with all their top forwards, it's going to be ridiculous. And so I didn't want to keep him off my list just because the talent is undeniable

and I don't want to be at the end of the season looking back on the list and being like, man, I can't believe I didn't have Quinn Hughes on any of my things. three teams considering where he is right now. Yeah, I mean, it's similar conversation to Caprizov where like, you know, the multiplying effect of them playing together could fault both these guys into different conversations that they're currently in.

And like Quinn was on an island in Vancouver for being completely honest. And like, like you, like you hinted at, like sometimes he took it too far in terms of like trying to be the guy every shift, every time he touches the puck. But it also like the system in the, the offense flew almost 100, percent through him when he was on the ice, right? So it was also sort of like a chicken and the egg thing. What's the problem here? But yeah, we'll see how it all sort of develops in Minnesota because there's a ton of runway here. It's not like it's a deadline edition, right? So I would be shocked if he wasn't on my end of season ballot. Yeah, he's already just unlocking

so much for them in transition, particularly the way they play. It's going to be really fun to watch moving forward. Who do you have on your goalies here? Because I believe we both had Sorokin and Logan Thompson as our top two. This one I struggle with a little bit more. Yeah, I like Shasturkineer, like workload-wise, you know, the numbers he's put up. I just feel like he's, you know, been dealing with not to Sorokin's level in terms of like the defensive environment and all that kind of stuff, but like I feel like he's been a rare but a lack of run support as well. Yeah, I just, I don't know.

I look around the league and I don't see like, I mean, Spencer Knight's a good sort of shout. But I feel like it's like Sorokin in his own tier and then like not too far behind. Thompson and then there's sort of like two or three guys for that third spot and I don't feel great about any of them but I picture Sturkin like I I do I really factor in workload when I'm thinking about goalies and the Vazna and because it's just such a demanding position and like it's you can have a like it's like Anthony Stolars like you can have a great 32 game season but it's like when things start to get ramped up are you even around and so it's such a big benefit it's such a big um checkmark if you're a guy like Sorokin or sorry

Shasturkin, but also Sorokin, who can play big minutes. Yeah, I had Spencer Knight just because the plus 22 goals able to have expected, still a 9-14 save percentage in the environment he's playing in, and he's been so good. The wheels have come off a little bit of Chicago since Bader's injury, certainly. I consider Jasper Walsett here because he's still, despite the workload, got a plus 15 goals able to expected. So if you're trying to quantify value added to your team,

I mean, he leads the league in shutouts despite the fact that he's played, like half the games of his other peers that we'd be considering here. But I just thought 12, 13 games or whatever he's played so far, considering some of these other guys who played 25, 26, it was a bit too low for me. But he's going to keep splitting the starts with Philip Gustafin. And if he keeps this up in the wild finish or push the abs for first and the central, finish second,

I think he's going to be up for consideration and certainly for the Calder as well because, I mean, the numbers are just absolutely obscene right now for him in the starts he's had. Yeah, I mean, he's up to 12 games. it's not the smallest sample size like he was breaking all these records early on with the first like three four or five games and it's like oh this is a nice story and obviously he has pedigree so you expect them to be good but it's like to double that in terms of workload is impressive and you know he's going to fall off to some extent at some point but he he seems to be the real deal 12 games that's mark stone territory so i feel like you certainly should have considered him

on your list i should have put him in number one there yeah yeah i feel like you know as part of this exercise i was putting together my my ballot for finalists for the awards and i i did think you up top for the heart. You've got McKinn. It's going to take something remarkable to unseat him there. Macar atop the Norris Schaefer, atop the calder. But I did think it was pretty wide open. I mean, for the Selki in particular this year, where, you know, you don't have Barcov.

This year, especially recently, has not had the season that you thought he would have as kind of jumping up and taking that spot with Barkov unavailable. So I think that award is pretty open. The Vesna, I had Sorokin up top. But as we talked about here, like there's a lot of moving parts there. and the Jack Adams as well. I'm very curious to see whether Ben R. Cooper finally win their first award, despite being the top two tenured coaches and constantly being good,

but never being recognized for it. So I think the awards are probably more open than I think they have been in the past, especially for finalist consideration. I'm really curious to see how it shakes out in the second half. Well, and even the heart, like, yes, you give it to McKinnon right now, but like there is a world where the sharks make the playoffs, Celebrini continues having a phenomenal year. And there's like a real discussion over like,

What does most valuable mean? Like right now, it's, it's McKinnon because he's been so outrageously good. And the best player on the best team is certainly worth something. But yeah. And like I wonder about splitting votes too, right? Like there's a McCar factor there. There is with the Oilers, McDavid and Drysidal, if people jump on your bandwagon there with Leon. So yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

Like I feel like I think you mentioned it there. But like the Norris seems relatively locked up, but otherwise it's pretty good. Yeah. I think with the abs, if they keep this up, especially, and they're on pace for like 137 points and a plus 150 goal differential, a lot of this, a lot of these awards do come down to like our preases and expectations and then guys who exceed that by the biggest margin, especially for the Jack Adams, for example, right? And I would argue that despite the fact that everyone assume the abs would be good and a Stanley Cup contender again, no one would have expected this type of season in terms of just like the sheer dominance and points they're churning out. And so if you're still using that criteria in terms of exceeding by the widest margin, I'd argue the aves have in that regard. I expect them to be like a hundred point team or 105 and now they're 135, 140. So I would kind of factor that in for all the aft stuff, despite the fact that these guys are siphoning the credit from each other and kind of splitting it up accordingly. All right, John, that was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed kind of taking stock where we're at

through these first 35 or so games of the season. I'll let you promote some stuff here on the way out. What do you want to let the listeners know about? Yeah, so as I mentioned before, just published a Macklin-Selbrini story, which probably, you know, colored my picks today. But no, I think he's a really fun player and the Sidney Crosby comparisons continue to pop up. And I think legitimately, not necessarily this guy's going to be a Mount Rushmore guy, but like kind of similar stylistically. So check that story out on the score. It's published right now. So just go on the app and check it out.

And thanks for having me on, Dimitri. Happy holidays to everyone listening. Happy holidays to you as well. Always fun to chat with you. looking forward to catching up with you in the new year. As I referenced earlier, did a really fun show earlier this week. We on the Patreon feed with our palisianne Chabarro. So go check that out and subscribe to their Patreon while you're at.

I think we're pushing up to 250 subs there. So a lot of sickos joining the bandwagon and getting involved here. So let's keep that going moving forward. Give us a five-star review wherever you listen, join the PDOCS Discord, in which Mattis is involved in as well. And that is all for today. We'll be back soon with. Plenty more. Thank you for listening to the Hockey Ocast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.