The Hockey PDOcast - Part 1: How the Avalanche, Blues, and Golden Knights Tied Their Series Up at 2–2

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Thomas Drance to break down what they saw this weekend from the Avalanche vs. Stars, Blues vs. Jets, and Wild vs. Golden Knights series as they each shift to Game 5 tied up at 2-2. 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.

since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey Pediocast. My name is Dimitri Philpovich. And joining me is my good buddy Thomas Trans Tom. It's another Sunday special. What's going on, man. Man, what another great day of hockey. These series are incredible. We're not getting any sweeps. That's pretty much fixed. It's been a final round one. We're going to get some long series, too. Yeah. And, you know, even teams that have been pushed to the brink, You think about like the Ottawa senators having dropped to an overtime and playing coinful of hockey to extend their playoff lives. And look, the Capitals might have the 3-1 lead in that series, but the Habs have been game and, in fact, have carried play for large stretches and have been right there in all of these games, including on Sunday evening. It's been a thrilling series despite sort of the habs being on the wrong end of some of the results.

As I said, it's a Sunday special, and it's good to be back. We were recording this, as we said last time, from the sunny Palm Springs now. It's not quite sunny outside right now because we're recording this late Sunday night. We wanted to get this out after a fun weekend of hockey to the listeners so they could start their week with some fun analysis, breaking all this stuff down. I thought it would be good for us to, you know, with all due respect to the Habs Caps series, you mentioned in the game four we saw today on Sunday and some of the other Eastern Conference matches we see. And I wanted to focus on the four West series here today, at least off the top, just because it feels like they've, been especially tight, competitive. They've really had the juice. I said the number of two, two scores we've got going into game pivotal game fives as well. And I thought a natural starting

point for us, we'll save Kings Oilers for later because on our most recent episode, I think we devoted like 35 minutes right off the top. And, you know, we still have plenty to say on that. But we'll circle back that later. Let's start with Ab stars. We spoke after game three about how impressed we were with Dallas being able to kind of, tighten things up, turn these games into the types of scripts and flow of play, especially volume that we didn't expect heading in based on the way those two teams finished off their regular seasons. And I think towards the end of that conversation, we kind of left the door open for,

especially here at home and altitude in front of that crowd. We felt like it was looming an avs sort of beat down like we saw in game four in terms of them really turning it up and watching that game, especially the second period when, when, you know, they really took over and had the stars just clanging on for dear life and on the ropes for successive shifts at a time. It was like the full fastball experience from the abs, right? It was like when they're at their most lethal. I think of that stretch, especially five or six minutes into the second when they had McKinnon McCar out there. And it just felt like an extended power play, even though it was five on five. They were compressing the zone the way they do. They're cycling.

puck and just kind of teeing off hiding your chance after hiding hit your chance. And that looked much more like what I expected heading into the series. Now, I think if you're a beat-de-born-star, you'd probably come out of that being like, well, we got our butts kick, but we went into Colorado, we won game three. We're heading back home to two. We've got two of the final three games at home. We'll see if Mero Haskinen is able to make a return at some point here. And so I do think there are positives for them.

It's just that, you know, as we're recording this, our most recent, visual, the recency bias is, man, that was a full-on throttling. At the very least, the stars, and I think we would have said this coming into this series, that if they're down Mero Heskin and throughout it, we don't expect them to have a very easy time even hanging with the Colorado Avalanche. And they've at least successfully bought themselves time. And it does feel like with some choices made in that Saturday game, Pete DeBore, at least sort of is playing the long game here very much so as this series goes along.

I think the part of this game that most defied my expectations would be Gabriel and Escog, obviously scores and it's an incredible story. It would be an incredible story if he didn't look like he could contribute as much as he looked like he could contribute on Saturday. Just being out there is a marvel. It's a marvel. Amazing. But he's not just out there.

He looked phenomenal. Like he looked exceptional on that line with Brock Nelson. Yep. And honestly, it felt like it added a layer to sort of the depth and just vibrancy of this Colorado attack. Well, that was a big adjustment by Jared Bednar. And it's interesting, right? Because I think you and I have heaped a lot of praise on Pete DeBurr, especially game to game in postseason settings. His adjustments is a tactician, his ability to squeeze the most juice out of his team and him doing so.

early in this matchup. Jared Bednar, do you think it's fair to say he's much more of a vibes guy, similar to what you see from John Cooper, not to diminish their roles as bench bosses, but in terms of having all these big names and stars and being able to sort of navigate that throughout it. And I thought he did an incredible job this season with the sheer number of skaters they used, right?

Like to a historic level and keeping things afloat until the trade deadline until they really fully fleshed out this roster. But we did see a key adjustment from him in this game four, where he changes up the forward lines. He puts Landisog, as you said, with Brock Nelson and Val Nachushkin, he reunites in the process, McKinnon and Aches with Lekinen,

and then he bumps Drewan down to that third line with Coil and Kiwi Ranta, and it paid massive dividends in this one, right? Particularly for Nelson and Nichuskin, who I think somewhat uncharacteristically heading into that game four in the first three games of the series, had played 45-on-five minutes together, and they hadn't contributed a single goal,

and they were rocking a sub 50% expected goal share in those three games, and then they all of a sudden put Landisg on that line. They played 1033 together in this one. Shots on goal were 14 to 1 for the aves. They generated their first two goals of the series, including Landisog finishing that beautiful Brock Nelson end to end rush with a labeled slapper and then an awesome celebration after, and you could tell how much it meant to everyone in that moment.

It really was such a cool moment. you know, going 34 months between NHL appearances for him, and then him stepping in. I think you and I both felt in game one coming away from that, being impressed with how he was moving in particular, right? He knocks the rant in and off the pocket on. I think it was his first shift, and the crowd loved that.

And then he even had a couple moments where off the rush, you know, the abs are generating that downhill attack, and he's got such a nice feel for the game and touch with like these little slip passes to get it into space around a defender's stick and set up one of his teammates, and it hadn't resulted in a goal in that game necessarily, but I thought that was something that I kind of bookmarked in the back of my mind, and then you saw it taken up to another level with the line promotion in this one. So I thought that was really cool to see.

And it's interesting, right? Because heading into this, I think the abs probably would have felt the same way, not only getting some clarity or finality or sort of like resolution to this whole saga that's been transpiring for three years now, but just getting them out there would provide such an emotional boost, right? For sure. But then early in the series, Ross Colton goes down with injury,

and him and Coyle have been playing so well together. Game two, they have to put Miles Wood in there. As we've said, Miles Wood, just all physicality and speed, absolutely no thought applied, and it cost them in that game. And so all of a sudden, now you get to a spot in your abs,

and you're talking about how, like, all right, well, you got all this newfound depth on this team. They actually came to this crossroads a moment in this series where they all of a sudden needed a guy like Landisog to step into the, this role and play a pivotal assignment in the series. And so I think it's incredibly impressive that he was able to kind of seize that moment, I guess, and provide exactly what they needed.

And I mean, it's really difficult for us to kind of overstate what it's meant to the feel of the series, just having him not only out there, but playing the way that he did in game four. Yeah, that line, that having those two lines that just completely from a territorial perspective demolished the stars and also the second line, it was the Landisog line that actually did the damage as well, right? But having that, and then you have sort of two specialized, more specialized lines, right? I mean, Druin ends up being the low man in Ice time, but we're going to see him play more in games where there's a trailing script, right? That game was relatively settled, certainly for the last 20 minutes and frankly before that.

So you've got the Drury line. That's that there's a clear identity. there and then you've got this more sort of juicy offensive line to add even additional layers to what they're doing as an attacking side. Are you calling it the jury line or the Logan O'Connor line? Well, it's always the center line. It's always the center. But yeah, I mean, the way that this team's constructed in some ways, I think more than I expected where I think we did the show a couple weeks ago and I dropped like the Lanny McDonald comp

of like depth contributor but has so much weight that just having him in the lineup matters. And if instead we're talking about a top six piece that actually makes, you know, things kind of fit better, right? Where you've got Nelson and you've got Natchushkin and Landiskeg. I mean, those are three big bodies with a huge amount of skill between them. That's a nightmare matchup. And especially below the hash mark. So you sort of get a breather from that and you've got Nathan McKinnon screaming at you a

million miles per hour. I mean, who's got it better than them? 25, five on five minutes for Lannisog in these two games. Yeah. 89% expected goal share. Oh, right. In those minutes, scores the goal. You know, it was inconsequential because it was already a decided three nothing game, but the fourth goal that they score in that game is him sort of more of his bread and butter, just kind of causing havoc around the net, providing that screen. And all of a sudden, that turns to a goal as well. So I think all of that is very notable. I mean, it was a four-nothing win for them. They outshot the stars, as we said,

to 23. The second period shots are 22 to 5. Expected goals are 2.6 to 0.4. It was about as kind of slanted or tilted an ice surface as you're going to see. And so I don't know from the stars perspective kind of how you feel coming out of that game, right? Because as I said, the glass half full case is very obvious. At the same time, that's all of your worst fears come true in terms of the way that game was played out. There's a couple guys for the stars in particular or beyond.

waiting for Hayskinen to come back and salvage it offensively that they need more from. And we can kind of talk about that as well. I actually, I don't know how you feel about Ranting it right now, because I think it's very easy to screenshot his like postseason player page right now and be like, well, this guy's going to be a $12 million player. He was supposed to be this franchise altering acquisition of the deadline. He has one assist, zero goals and has been a minus player in the series. Yet I thought the past two games, it actually was a silver lining for me, seeing him apply

himself. Some of the seals in terms of puck protection using his frame along the wall, as we outlined the effort play he made at the end of a long shift to create the game three overtime winner. I feel like it's coming for him, even early in game four, but while it was still relatively competitive and even in zero zero, he had that beautiful rush chance that I feel like when he's feeling it and when he's on top of his game, he probably buries it because he's such a lethal sniper, but instead he kind of shoots it back into Blackwood off that rush opportunity.

but I feel like it's coming for him. Maybe for, I need to see more from Wyatt Johnson, I think. Yeah. And he's kind of working with not the best hand right now because you look at the way Pete has sort of decided to divvy things up. He's playing him with Jamie Ben and Evgeny Doddanov. By proxy, they're having to play a lot with Cody Cici and S.L. Nell-Dell pair, so he's not out there as much with Thomas Harley,

who's really the only creator on the blue line for this team right now. and they're going in a head-to-head matchup assignment against generally Nathan McKinnon and Kail McCar. So on the one hand, it's like what are your expectations really offensively? For me, for him, especially what we've seen from him over the course of his young careers so far, in postseason settings at that, they're very high and lofty, and they need him to be more dangerous and score goals and he hasn't yet. So if he can get unlocked in any way and maybe at home, they can provide or manufacture a few easier opportunities for him with offensive zone starts or better. teammates out there to potentially do so. Maybe that's a way they can get unlocked a little bit offensively.

But I feel like that would be the starting point for me beyond anything else. It's like we just need more out of that guy if we're going to have a chance to trade punches with this staffs team. Yeah, and I also think they can't trade punches with this AF's team. I think the sort of game script from game three is what this is going to look like. And, you know, the stars at least only have to play one more time in Colorado in this series, which is important because as we saw in that game four, right, the way it can look if the avalanche are taking their chances. Frankly, I think we saw it in drips and drabs in game three as well as the stars played too, right?

They don't have a fastball that can match Colorado's velocity. And he needs to be such a well-manicured game for them, right? It's a narrow path. It needs to be like micromanaging, and I think Peterborough probably likes that, and that's probably to his preference. But I'm sure he'd love a fully healthy team, but Jason Roberts and Mayor Hayes going to be like, you know what, let just let it rip and trade punches of this team. instead they need to really like every ship needs to almost be like NFL coordinator style like

really scripted for them to succeed because as soon as you start freelancing it can be chaos on the stars side of this right and and you mentioned miko rattanan and i think the overall where we see so many teams go where we see so many plans go awry at the nchl level is when teams go through that process of trying to you know elevate from being a good team to being something an awful lot more. And the stars have been knocking on the door of being one of those contender-level teams and just haven't had the ceiling, I think, to really break through, despite, you know, making it to the Stanley Cup final in the bubble

and being somewhat regular as a team that plays in the, you know, late May even. And I think the fact that they went for it with Ranton, the way they did, exchanging in some ways some of the... their floor in the short term, but adding a player with the capability to meaningfully alter their ceiling over a three or four year window, like, I don't think the result of this series or Rantanin's form during this series, especially given how unsettled his campaign has been on the whole. I don't think it should be viewed as a referendum on that deal. Like, the truth is that, whether it's the Kings with Pierre-Luc Dubois, you know, whether it's the New Jersey Devils with

Tim O'Myer, right? Like, we see teams swing for that sort of Vegas, hey, let's take good players and add some great players and keep sort of building that way. We see so many teams struggle with that sort of final step. And I don't think that's what we're seeing with Rantan. I think we're just seeing a team that as a result of a pile up of injuries and a right-side defensive group, I mean, Alex Petrovich, I know the game got out of hand and Pete DeBore started managing minutes accordingly. But Alex Petrovich played. the third most minutes among all stars defenders five on five. Like, you know, the way that this blue line is built, I think is posing some issues,

especially against this avalanche team, just the way we expected it to. The fact that they're in this series still is sort of a testament to the skill level of this team, especially in combination with this coach. And obviously, Jake Ottinger playing really well, Esselendell being a killer, absorbed defender, especially on the PK. I mean, there's things, there's a lot to like about. about this Stars team, I just think we might need to be a little bit patient. If they do, if they are the team that ducks out here in round one, I still think we should look big picture

at what they sort of done in adding Rantanin and, and at least like exhale and have some patience because I do think they needed to add an elite player of that caliber, even if it didn't necessarily put them over the top short term. 100%. I'd be pretty hard pressed. I mean, we'll see. We're all expecting a pretty frenzied offseason and a lot of player movement and such. But I'd be pretty hard pressed not to have them right atop my Stanley Cup favorites list heading into the next season. You know, you're talking with the blue line there. I did want to quickly give some love to kill McCarre because last time we spoke,

we both thought that especially towards the end of that game three, he was playing very uncharacteristically like tentative and loose with the puck and just it was, it wasn't the way you expect him to play. He was fighting it a little bit. I thought he came out of it came out to this game. and it was clear, especially after losing back-to-back games and overtime, the abs are like, all right, we need to get back on track here right out of the gate.

And he was in typical fashion pushing the tempo early on, it was five minutes in. He has that play where he gets it in the neutral zone, he does the 10-2, creates a little space, does a dash up the right side, dances Thomas Harley, gets in for a scoring chance, and then, as I said in the second, some of those shifts were absolutely breathtaking

that he was sort of helping fuel the way the abs do. So I thought he was great in this game. And I think our direct line was he needs to be the best defender in the series. He needs to play like the best defender in the series. It can't be Thomas Harley if the avalanche are going to, you know, eliminate a two-one deficit and win. And there was no question in game four who the best defenseman on the ice was. It's remarkable that looking at this, he's played 85 on five minutes in this series through four games and the have still haven't scored a single goal in that time. It hasn't been for a lack of chances

throughout necessarily. But also that would be a promising thing if I would have as being like, right, there's probably some more offense coming there based on. historical results and trends. We're level. Sorry, we haven't scored a goal in our ice time leaders five on five minutes. Yes. That's a dam that's pent up and going to break eventually. Okay, I want to end on this series with this, because you sort of tiptoed around it and you hinted

at it a little bit, but I think this also applies to we're going to talk about Jets Blues later and it ties in neatly to that. I don't want to spend too much time on it necessarily, but I do think it is relevant because I think people were somewhat surprised in watching Game 4 of that. this series, you know, Jake Andre, I thought was incredible. Like, as I said in that second period, that game could have become a six, seven, nothing landslide quite easily in the wrong hands, and he made some big saves to keep it at a respectable three-nothing. And then they come out of second intermission, and I think it surprised people that Pete DeBore made the coaching change,

brings in the backup, Casey to Smith, and lets Jake Auditor just sit with a baseball cap on, on the bench for the final period, right? And I think I actually like that quite a bit, just because I think he had a feel for his team in the way the game was trending. And it was pretty clear that despite it only being a three goal deficit, it was not going to be their night. And so essentially just pulling the shoot and being like, listen, we're going to take the long view here. We don't even have an extended break.

I believe it's just the one day off between the two games. And so all of a sudden, game five heading back home, we want our guy fresh. We're probably going to need to lead on him quite a bit. and I think most importantly, not to ascribe too much to the mental component of the position, but not kind of leaving them out to dry

in terms of like, all right, you're going to just face this brazier shots, give up another three or four goals in the third period, and completely sink your confidence heading into that big game five. Instead, just calls it a night there. We saw Scott Arniel very reluctant to do so with Connor Hellebuck in game three, and then we saw how game four unfolded and I'm not saying it necessarily happened just because of that.

But I do wonder if we need to kind of change our perception with the handling of goalies in these big spots because it's generally viewed as such a sort of taboo thing or kind of like, oh man, this is embarrassing for the goalie. They just got the hook. And listen, every... A disciplinary measure. And every one of these players, whether they're hurt or playing poorly, is going to do everything possible to be like, I'm good, coach. Keep me in there, right? Yeah.

Sometimes as the coach, you need to steer the ship and be the executive and make those executive decisions. And so I actually do think that it should be more common practice not to waive the white flag in playoff games because we've seen certainly with the environment in today's NHL and the skill involved, all these teams can quickly erase a deficit, right? Like the Oilers in game one, as we saw all of a sudden, a four-goal deficit is shrunk and you're back in it. So you don't want to take that for granted. But I do feel like in some of these instances playing the long game of being like, this guy's going to be our starter because we're not all of a sudden, like, within the regular season, rotating these guys. He's going to play every single game as long as his postseason run is. Why burn 20, 40 minutes, whatever, when it's not going our way and also sink their confidence

in the process? And so I actually really like what they did there. And I wish we saw that more. And I wish it was more common practice than I guess accepted and viewed as a positive thing as opposed to some sort of a dis against whatever goalies involved. Yeah. The truth is that you don't have as much control as a coaching staff over a goalie's workload. that they're in or they're out, and that's the decision.

It's a binary. It's a one or a zero, whereas Esselindel plays, you know, four minutes and 36 seconds at five on five in the third period, right? DeBoer made the same choice there. Now, is there an element to which there's also a Lindel's obviously going to play more when we're holding leads? Like, is there a game script element? Sure, but even then, that's not a four minutes for Elindel period.

You know, even if you're chasing the game, unless you're managing your team and playing the long game. And you have to. You know, you see, I think, teams that are really disciplined about managing goalie workloads. You know, the blues come to mind to me. And again, we'll talk about this later, so I won't get too much into it now. But they were really disciplined about playing Joel Hofer even during their win streak, right? And I think that pays dividends. Like I think managing goalie rest being more scrupulous about it and treating the or out decision, much like, you know, we wouldn't bat an eyelash at a, at a coach, you know, with like a back-to-back game set, sort of playing the fourth line 12 minutes at five-on-five, especially if the game's relatively lopsided from a score perspective, we shouldn't think of goaltenders any differently, I think. Yeah, I know there's a lot of pride involved, especially for the top guys, right? I think comes to mind with, like, John Cooper and Vasilewski, there was a stretch there for a long time, where regardless of how bad things were going

or how many goals they'd given up in a game, Vasseliske was like, I'm not leaving this game. And so Cooper would just leave them in there, and that was the sort of rapport they had. So maybe it's on a case-by-case basis. I'm not saying whether it's right or wrong, but I do feel like in this case, it's pretty clear that like when you're weighing the risk-reward

or kind of the alternatives, it's like, all right, well, best case, we just keep this at 3-0, or worse case, it's 7-0 by the end of this game, and we're like, oh, man, why do we just go through that and subject ourselves to it? Especially because, as we know, when you're leading a lot, right, you're going to give up higher quality chances at lower volume, but nonetheless, you're giving up higher quality chances in part because you're going to be going for it. You're going to be turning the puck over on entry attempts at the blue. Like you're going to be playing a riskier style to get back in the game, which does elevate the chance of, you know, you making the decision anyway, right?

Like the being like we have to pull the goalie now anyway. So to some extent it's a proactive measure as well that, look, I think it shows a great deal of discipline and long-sightedness. Like DeBoer, it's a tactical retreat. DeBoer was not losing the battle. He was just willing to live to fight another day in a very specific way. I like that. All right. Let's take our break here.

And then when we come back, we will switch gears. We will cover some of the other West series, as we alluded to. You're listening to the Hockey PEDEO guest streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the Hockeypedo guest. Tom, let's talk Jets Blues. We watched the game four on Sunday afternoon. It was a matinee start. I think you and I were both curious to see whether there'd be a pushback from the Jets after how lifeless game three was with them still being up to one, how high leverage a moment it was for them in a series.

And I will say, to their very limited credit, I thought it was actually a really great. eight first period from the Jets for the most part, right? Like they, you did see some of that response after the butt kicking in game three. They were generally controlling a lot of the flow of the play. They were racking up the shots. They were up one nothing. And then unfortunately for them, the Blues scored a late first period goal. Get out of that period one, one.

And the wheels kind of fell off from there. The Blues wind up winning 5-1. What were your takes from that in terms of watching it? What we saw from the Jets in particular? because obviously, you know, people are going to be very quick to pile on in terms of, here we go again for the Jets. They're completely folding like a deck of cards. These past two games, they got absolutely slaughtered on the score sheet.

And now all of a sudden, after two very impressive performances by them to start the series at home, in terms of exactly the way they want to play and acquitting themselves quite nicely in that type of playoff setting, the wheels really, as we said, fell off here in these two games in St. Louis. And now all of a sudden, they do have an extra day. off before game five. And there's going to be a lot of questions about like, how do you sort of regroup from this? How do you salvage this?

Because obviously, this could kind of like deteriorate pretty quickly if they don't figure something out. Yeah. And yet, I do think both of the games, like just to frame this from the Hellebuck perspective, because let's be real, we're all thinking about it. The two games where his play, I think, became a talking point where games were either Blue shooters just made their shots, flat out made their shots. Or today, a game where it just felt like the bounces, the screens were ever present.

And I thought for all the Jets pressure in the first period, and I thought they were excellent. In fact, as that game got away from them, I was kind of shocked watching it because the final scoreline didn't have much of a relationship to, certainly the first half hour of the game, but I'd say even as the blues were sort of piling it on, it felt like the Jets were there. This was not one of those 5-1 games. This was a very different feel from the Dallas Stars' afflanch game than we just talked about.

In fact, for large segments of this game, the Jets seemed to be putting the Blues under a significant amount of duress and generating a ton. But I did think it was notable for all the Jets pressure early, the extent to which, their net front opportunities, when they did shoot through screens, were far less invasive for Binnington than what players like Jake Neighbors and Company

were doing the Hellibuck on the other end. I do think, and I know this is a bit of an old hockey guy take, but I do think that that was a material difference in the performance of these two teams. There were multiple instances, and it was often to Messnikov where he didn't flash through. He wasn't able to take Binnignton, eyes on what could have been a more dangerous opportunity, multiple instances in that first

period. And then you see whether it's the neighbor's goal or the other screened goal on Helibuck, that layered traffic that the blues are creating here is, like honestly, it looks oppressive from Helibuck's perspective. Yeah, there were a couple point shot goals there, right? There was the one off Neil Pionk's butt. There was the one with Oscar Sunquist screen. I didn't actually think, you know, he's playing a pretty high leverage scoring role on this team, but not necessarily being the guy. I know he scored the goal in, what, it was it early in game? It was a great shot.

But otherwise, like, he's playing a very specific role of kind of just, like, causing havoc around the net and standing there. And on that one screen, it was one of the, a very modern type of screen, too, where, like, he flashed across just as a shot was coming in time to perfectly. And I know we were comparing that to what Vladom Ska offer. example was doing in similar situations where like he just wasn't nearly good enough in making that a more difficult read for jordan bennington on the other end so there was a lot to that a lot of that there he was slow to react a couple times i thought whether it was you know he got a stick on the shen goal but then shen powers through and wraps it around him or even kind of um the reaction

time to the rob thomas goal that kind of put this game away those wouldness would be somewhat knocks for me on the one hand as you said i think you need to to break these down on a goal-by-goal basis. On the other hand, we're talking 11 goals against in two games, and as difficult as some of these screenshots and traffic opportunities are, and the Blues just making some of their shots, especially early in the series, if you're, I'm kind of at the point where as much of a defender as been of Connor Hellebuck, at some point, it keeps happening.

If you're going to be viewed as the best goalie in the world, and he has been with back-to-back, Veznas now. at some point you kind of need to find a way to fight through that and make a save, right? It is a team game, and I'm completely with you that the Blues are winning in front of the goalie in a lot of those instances. But we've seen someone like, I don't know he kind of gave up a bad sort of goal in the game for overtime. But Anthony Stolars, prior to that, had done a remarkable job in that series under very high volume of the Sends, just essentially orienting their entire offense around trying to get screens. and tips on perimeter shots was stopping all of them

and finding a way to fight through it and be big and make some of those stops. And at the end of the day, that's your job as the goalie. And you're going to face difficult shots and not everything is going to be a straight line, clear sight opportunity for you. And so I'd like the Jets to be better in front of them,

but also if you're going to be the best goalie in the world, I do feel like 11 goals against in two games is unacceptable and you need to stop a few more of those. Fair enough. I just, I look at, for example, the Shen goal, which is a slot line move, right? And obviously to flex off multiple sticks, his stick gets involved. It's an excellent finish, an excellent play by Shen,

capitalizing off his brother's sort of flub on a dump-in. And then you've got the Kyle Connor back check after the turnover. Oh, let's talk about that a little bit. We can, but more than anything, I'm just saying, when you break down what's happening and why these goals are happening, I just, I think if you're Hella Buck sitting down with a goalie coach or if you're Scott Arnail sitting down with the team's goalie coach and going through it and saying, where can we be better?

I don't know that there's anything constructive that you're going to come up with stemming from what was permitted by your goaltender in that game. And I think that matters. That has to matter. No, I agree. I think that context is very important. What I'm saying is I don't want to, because I have been very quick to defend him and we did a full show after game one or whatever kind of talking about this.

and I still... I remain steadfast in that. I do, I am as well. All I'm saying is I'm not willing to absolve him of all the blade, I guess, right? I do think this is a partnership here and maybe the bigger issue then. If you are Scott Arneill,

you're kind of looking back at these games. I know I said that they had the response you'd like to see to start this game after how poorly game three had started right off the bat with an immediate goal against in the first minute or so. I just, I thought the Jets. we're kind of soft in this game for the most part and maybe even lumping in game three as well and I find that disappointing because I thought their play was very commendable in that area in the first

two games right we were kind of noting how physical right off the hop this series was and the blues were just throwing the body around and trying to kind of take it to them and overpower them and we saw Adam Lowry reciprocate we saw them really push back and really be like yeah we're a legitimate contenders were at home, we're going to take care of business. And especially in this game, but you can apply game three as well, as soon as things started going poorly, there was no real solution there. It felt like it was like, oh, man, here we go again. And it just started to accumulate.

And they had no answer for that. And so that would be a concern for me. And that ties into the goalie conundrum, where it starts with in front of your goalie. You need to do a better job of clearing out space. making some of those sight lines more visible because the blues on the other hand are doing a much better job of that in my opinion. And so I think that's like a big

storyline or kind of area of focus heading into game five in the series. Yeah. Also, the silencing as the series shifted to St. Louis of the Shifley-Connor line, which was so dominant on Home Ice, you know, if there's sort of one reason for optimism, it's do you continue to get that?

what we saw in games one and two where it really felt like the blues were going to have to stretch to find a response or just some way to stem the bleeding as the series moved to St. Louis, that dissipated. And they need to get back to being the reason that the Winnipeg Jets are winning games

if they're going to win the series. Yeah, and these last two games in St. Louis, five-on-five goals were six-one for St. Louis against Shafley and Connor. And as you noted on the fifth goal, which really kind of put any doubt in this game away, we've spoken about how I think Kyle Conner did a much better job this season

especially as the series progressed and early on in this series of applying himself off the puck and being more diligent about I know you like to talk about how good he is off the puck in the offensive zone but when it's in the neutral zone or a defensive zone making himself available and applying pressure and backchecking and doing all that stuff you want to see from your top line winger

and then just go back and watch and you and I did so because I couldn't believe it in real time. Like you go back and watch the replay of that fifth goal. And it's turnover in the offensive zone. And he like gets upright and is just standing there. And then as the play progresses into the jet zone, I'm like, where's Kyle Connor in the frame? Because the camera's moving.

Yeah. But he's nowhere to be found. And then all of a sudden, all of a sudden you see Robert Thomas like gliding, not even skating hard, colliding into his move. And then he's able to go in completely una beta one-on-one against Hellebuck and tuck it past him. and that's just not good enough.

So I think that goes there. I was thinking in watching these games as well, I'll let you jump in a second. It's such a shame because this series has been very fun to watch, even though the past few games were kind of blowouts on the scoreboard. But I've really enjoyed all the moving parts and especially kind of this back and forth now that we're seeing heading back to Winfrey 2.2.

It's such a shame that we're not getting to see talents like Dylan Holloway for the Blues. And then Nikolaeiler is certainly on Gabe Vlarity. It sounds like Gabe Vlari, who, you know, practiced in a regular jersey, took the warm up, I believe, in this game. Now they got the extra day off. I imagine he will be back for game five. That'll be a huge boost for them. Initially, I was like, oh, man, Alex Alive, I was playing so well on that top line. I like the element he adds. You have to stick with it. At this point, the shines come off with that a little bit. And so whether it's that or the

power play, I do think that Thalardi's inclusion into the series is going to be a huge step in the right direction for the Jets. If this series had two of the most electric rush threats in the league in Eilers and Holloway, you know, the added layer of pyrotechnics from that would be must watch. It already is must watch, but the idea that it would elevate even further is incredible. Valardi, given the impact of traffic and sort of finishing on the outcomes of the four games that we've seen in the series so far, it's like, Valardi could not be more just what the doctor ordered from from a Jets perspective. He is essential to what they need.

Can I talk about Torpchenko? I will, I will, because you're a tri-should obligated as his agent to jump in and put in the good word. To that point, though, especially in the power play, right? Because Filarity is such a massive weapon. They're down low in terms of unlocking things for their shooters, and they had the best, most efficient power play in the league. This season, they've only scored the two goals on the power play in the series. The Blues, on the other hand, have scored six and been punishing them pretty much every time.

And so, yeah, that big body with how physical or how much more physical the Jets need to play. And then some of that touch as well to improve their efficiency and make life more difficult and tight for Bittington. I do feel like those are huge X factors. It's too bad too because the Jets power play I think is looking pretty good. Yeah, they're moving the puck around. They're getting opportunities. Yeah, certainly. And even their second unit.

I was really impressed with how straight line and simple their second unit kept it. I thought they actually, that was sort of one area of the game where I thought they were setting up. intelligent opportunities managing things well. So, you know, it's, I think, a credit to Binnington and a credit to the Blues P.K. Because I don't think there's, again, I think when Scott Arniel watches that on tape, he's not going to look at the power play and think we have to do an awful lot of things different other than we probably need to just want it a little bit more in the dirty area of the ice.

Vladomisikov has scored one goal in his past 33 games and he's played the third most minutes amongst Jets forwards in that time. And so, yeah, I'm just kind of putting that. note out there as well because that was pretty critical of their trade deadline. And certainly you lose two top six forwards. Everyone is going to feel the ramifications of that. But whether it was at the start of the both season or if you have visions of winning a Stanley Cup, you're going to need to use different guys and have backup plans offensively and not

just be like, well, we're fine if every single player on our team is healthy. But if we lose one guy all of a sudden, we're going to be up against it offensively. And so we've seen a little bit of that here. All right. I'll give you two minutes on Toro, Franco. I just want to, we talked about Kempe and him adding this power play dynamic, this dominant power play force that he's become, especially running the point and just operating downhill in this playoffs. And obviously that's an awful lot sexier and a awful lot higher leverage than Alexei Torpchenko and his evolution on the PK. But it's two sides of the same coin.

It is the bottom six version of that where you had this big bodied guy. And early in his career, it was like, okay, he can get in on the forecheck and he throws some hits, but he doesn't have great hands. And what does he do other than, you know, be sort of a cardio guy with some imposing size? But becoming the penalty killer he's becoming, he had several key disruptive checks that I think prevented goals early on in that game. I think he was an essential part of the blues hanging on, gathering themselves and then taking over this game as it went along. his work on the PK in the first was standout. I think it's the lower leverage bottom of the lineup version of the same thing we're seeing with Kempe

as he becomes a totally, as he adds like a different layer, more complexity, more value onto his game with some special teams, dominance. I actually think we're kind of seeing something similar, albeit further down the lineup with Torbchenko. I mean, there's certainly similarities. Both guys are competing in this year's NHL postseason for their respective clubs.

All right, let's end part one with this. I want to talk Golden Knights Wild with you because I thought that game 4 sticking to the script of that series being incredibly entertaining was must watch theater. I just can't believe how much I love this series and watching every single one of these games. The overtime was so fun. It had so many twists and turns that game 4 did. It felt like the Wild really had the Golden Knights on the ropes after how games two and three transpired.

and then we saw the Golden Knights find a way to win it. It just rocked in so many ways, the pace, the intensity, the execution. It's kind of what everything that makes the NHL playoffs the best, right? Especially round one, this kind of surprising matchup, and then all of a sudden it just capturing our attention. This game had 36 combined high danger chances. I know it went into overtime, but it was still just kind of to represent how high event it was,

nearly 80 shots on goal between the two. I thought there were two notable differences in this game four for Vegas that helped them salvage it and go home tied compared to the last couple of wild victories. And the first one is Bruce Cassidy finally showing some urgency, I think, in switching up his forward lines that had really been getting their teeth kicked in, as we talked about last time, up at the top of the lineup where Boldy, Caprizov, Joel, Erickson Eck, were just so decisively winning their matchup against Ikel, Barber Shev, and Stone,

and it had gone to the point where you just could not keep going down that road, And so as this game progressed, you saw Bruce Cassidy put Eichel with Wild Bill Carlson. You saw him put Stone with Hurdle. And you could see the gains of that, right, or the benefits of it. One of the goals, the goal of the night's scoring, the third was one of the most 200 IQ plays I've ever seen. And that's saying something for Mark Stone because he certainly had a lot of them throughout his career. But, you know, you can quibble whether it should have been a penalty or not because Thomas Hurtle essentially just took a guy down in front of the net and put his I was around and tackled them, but both guys are down on the ice and stone, just you can tell very clearly, just as like, I'm just going to shoot the puck off of them and try to get it into the net. He almost like, uh, billiard style just like called his shot and, uh, and banked it in there off of them on the ground. It was pretty cool to see. And then I think really importantly, freeing up Eichl a little bit, you know, you bump them to the wing all of a sudden, playing with Carlson and we know how, uh, how stout defensively wildbill is. And so all of a sudden, I think that just gives them a much more viable.

I think to combating the wild top line and we saw those two guys have much more success territorially by the shots and everything you know the goals had didn't come for them in this game necessarily but I think that's something the wild the golden nights and Bruce Cassidy will continue with heading into game five at home and really try to kind of tamp down on that matchup so I like that because the golden nights have so many moving parts up front and I was very curious to see what they do and then it was very vanilla to start this series and as I said they didn't really have much urgency, especially early on, of trying to line up and neutralize Minnesota stopline, and then things really went off the rails for them in that head-to-head. And so I think that was a huge

adjustment. And that's largely the reason why I think they won this game beyond finally getting some power-ploid opportunities and scoring two power boy goals in this game. Yeah, I think it accomplishes, look, the way Caprizov, Boldie, and Y'El Erickson, were rolling. Just the idea of, hey, our two best defense players, let's throw them together and throw them at these guys. You know, our two best defense forwards anyway, I think that's a sensible solve given sort of the way

that this series was beginning to tilt in the wild's favor. But I also think Hurtle with Howden and Stone gives you the sorts of bigger bodies below the hash marks guys all to playing together. that makes sense against the Wild's middle six where you've got guys like Felino and Hartman and company. So I think that it sort of accomplishes two things and that it makes you a more robust two-way against a top end of the Wild lineup that was dominating this series.

But I also think it makes you a better stylistic matchup against some of the down-lineup stuff that the Wilde are able to throw at Vegas. And then obviously it gives you a pretty cool third line with Nick Waugh. And so... Yeah, my Niqua bags right now are overflowing. Between Barbashev and Riley Smith, yeah, that's nasty. Yeah, I mentioned that Macar stat earlier. It's a couple games, but still with that volume and how good those players are,

whenever you see stuff like, you've played 80 minutes and there's been zero five-on-five goals scored for your team. It's somewhat surprising to see. Eichol has been outscored six-nothing at five-on-five in this series, and part of that is just that match-up. But clearly, they need more from all offensively, I think this is probably beyond the defensive gains being their most viable path towards doing so. I mean, I don't have anything new to add on Matt Boldie, but man, that play and didn't result in a goal, obviously, they lost the game.

But that play in overtime he makes where he gets the puck on his backhand, he spins around, beats Nick Hague for the zone entry, then draws Noah Hanofin over to him. And it kind of like slides around and tucks it over to Eric Seneck, who drives to the net and draws a power play opportunity for them. was just like such crisp high-level stuff, and he makes it look so smooth. And I really feel like him and Kempe have been the two guys in watching all these playoff games that have just blown my mind. Like I was incredibly high on both of them already, but just seeing the heights they've taken their game to,

I'm like, man, this is just such next-level stuff. Yeah, and I think consistent with some of what we saw in the Four Nations, you know, the big-bodied guys that can fly off the rush, especially in higher stakes, more chaotic, game environments, I mean, you need them at this level. Like, you need them once you get to the pointy end of the season or the pointy end of a tournament. So there is a stylistic sort of takeaway, I think, from them being the breakout stars of this playoffs or at least the first 10 days of this playoffs that I think are at least worth

considering when we get beyond this, when we go into the summer, when we think about sort of what matters at this time of year. Sorry, I should amend that list. It's clearly Kempay Boldi and Doropchenko. as my three biggest risers. Yeah, I mean, I think the wild, you know, to their credit, have put some really interesting stuff on tape here, regardless of how the series unfolds,

whether they're able to get through and win this series in the final three games or if Vegas is able to and goes ahead and plays either L.A. or Edmonton, like some stuff that's really going to bug Vegas in future matchups, whether it's how they're just kind of forcing them to, and Vegas has got, you know, their fair share of rush opportunities, but kind of forcing them to play a different style of game, I think, than they want to in terms of, like, standing up in the neutral zone and forcing them to kind of play more dump and chase as opposed to free flowing in transition or sort of how they've terrorized the Golden Knights defensemen, essentially, in terms of just pressuring them into making mistakes. And we've seen Theodore had a horrific game too, for example.

We've seen Hanna Finn get tortured a couple of times, Hague, the list goes on and on. They've really done a great job of doing that. So I think full marks for this series in terms of what we've seen from it so far. And it's right up there for me, as I've said, in terms of entertainment value. And I just can't wait for Game 5 and beyond of this because I feel like these games have been just incredibly entertaining and just great cinema. Yeah. And with the wild getting out of buyout cap jail this summer and having meaningful flexibility with very few impact pending UFAs. I mean, some good players who are pending UFAs, but not in that. that tier of like really difficult to replace guys. I mean, I also think regardless of, you know,

which team wins two more in this series, I think we're going to go into the summer thinking that the wild are poised to do a lot more than I think we've been expecting from them in previous years. And I think that's more than anything what they've put on tape. They're going to be a very popular like breakout central division winning team, I think, when we gather to preview next season. Yeah, I think certainly. I mean, especially. They have to be. They should be. With this look of, I mean, with this top line, and whether that's a long-term thing or whether you do split it up more

over the course of an 82-game regular season, just having that option in your back pocket. And then, of course, like bringing in his way I'm here at getting him a first taste of the NHL, I mean, it is very encouraging. Yeah, how well Philip Gustavson's played. Yep. Philip. And also, you know, how quick and intelligent that blue line group is.

And then, you know, graft a top end, like what we're seeing from Caprizov Boldy and annual Erickson Eck, this starts to get to be a pretty exciting brew that they've got cooking. All right, buddy. Let's put a pin in it here. We're going to switch over to part two, and we're going to keep talking about some of the stuff we've seen this postseason, especially on the Western front. So we'll do that there. Thank you to everyone for listening to the Hockey Ocast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.