The Hockey PDOcast - Part 1: Saying Goodbye to Eliminated Teams

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Thomas Drance to say goodbye for the season to the teams that eliminated ahead of the playoffs. They look at where things went wrong for them this year, and what they can salvage from it heading into the offseason. 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 Pideo cast with your host, Dmitri Filippovin. Welcome to the Hockey Ocast. My name is Dmitra Filippovich and joining me as always on Sunday, my good buddy Thomas Trans Tom, what's going on, man? Hey, buddy. Looking forward to the end of this regular season. The preseason feel to this last run of games is wearing me down. But I suppose the good side of that is at least the contrast with the playoffs when they begin will feel even sharper. Night and day, yeah. However, my thirst to get through this is like, you know, unquensionably significant at the moment. And, you know, I have this unfortunate misanthropic disease where I look constantly at the standings

and think to myself, boy, you know, the Canucks grinding out that point against the Minnesota Wild last night really would have mattered a lot. if them in Utah were still jockeying for the final play-in spot, right? Or, man, these games in the Eastern Conference between the Highlanders and the Rangers and the Red Wings and the Blue Jackets sure could have an awful lot of stakes if the NHL were open-minded about expanding the playoff field the way they should have several years ago. Counterpoint. All those teams you listed, I think I'm good at 82 games.

I don't need more. I've seen enough. You know what? I don't need the Canucks playing any more high-stakes games. You know what? Fair, fair, but you don't feel that way about Calgary. I don't, but we're going to get to Calgary later today. They might actually get to play meaningful games here down the stretch anyways. It would be nice if they had that kind of locked up and we're looking forward to hosting a playing game

and maybe competing for the opportunity to only have to win one to get themselves into the playoffs. So even your objection, I feel like, is answered here. Okay, let's get into it. We have so much to get through today. It's the final regular season edition of the Sunday special, and we're going to do something a little bit different to commemorate it. We're going to say goodbye for this season to the teams that have already been eliminated to take a look at what went wrong for them this year.

It's Ulygy Sunday, baby. What they could do this summer, and if there's anything important to be learned or salvage from this season for them moving forward, and we're going to stay on brand because that's what we do here. We're going to start with the Utah Hockey Club. It's going to be a real test for us right out of the gate, seeing how much self-restraint we have, not spending a disproportionate amount of time on them. This could be a full show.

We'll see how it goes. Of course, we're starting with them, though. And I think that's fair and justified on our end because they are the most interesting team in this exercise, in my opinion. You look at what they've gone through the past couple years, obviously going from Arizona to Utah, but just in terms of the standings, they jumped from 57 to 70 to 77 points last year, potentially 91 this year if they win their final two games, they're going to miss the playoffs. But in prepping for this jet steep dive that I did last Friday, I noticed that Winnipeg had jumped up to 7.5. second in 515 chance share, expected goal share since four nations, and how much, how improved their 515 profile is in that same 24 game sample, Utah is third in 515 shot share, first in high danger chance share, and first in the league in expected goal share at over 57%.

And over this past week or so, you kind of mentioned how the hockey hasn't really been representative of late season, meaningful hockey, how teams are phoning it in that are already eliminated or even teams that are locked into their playoff seating, are arresting guys, aren't really taking it seriously, are viewing it as an opportunity to prep for the upcoming postseason. This Utah team has been the one consistent over the past 10 days where they've just been approaching this incredibly seriously trying to get these valuable reps in for some of their young guys.

And I've been quite frankly throttling a lot of these teams, right? They blew a game at home to LA, but the shots were like 25 to 5 or something, halfway through the second in that game. They beat Winnipeg quite handily. They went into Dallas. Dallas had a few guys resting, but still took it to them, gave them another 35 shot against effort. And just watching these games, especially here of late, they've finally done what I think you and I were hoping for all along, which is they just loaded up the top line. They got rid of all the pretense, trying to mix in Nick Schmaltz in there, and just went Cooley-Lie-Gunther Keller. They look unbelievably good together. And the leap in particular, the Cooley made here in year two, where he's on pace for 70 points, the leap Gunther made where despite the injuries, he's on pace for 33 goals this year. Not to mention what we've seen from guys like Kesselring, your guy, Barrett Hayden, Josh Dohn as well, some of the steps these young players have taken. I think we're fair in our continued belief that this team is the team of the future.

This is Jack McBain-Erasher on your part. Got to throw him in there. Yeah, you know, I do think they had a little fat, ultimately, as we consider this team and why they fell short in the top six. and I think Schmaltz on the top line, Kerrfoot on the second line, would be sort of the areas that jump off the page as in need of an upgrade going into this summer, right?

And that's unfortunate. Not unfortunate, but I think they have to aim higher. And I think what is unfortunate is that this team didn't swing bigger at the deadline, especially given that they were sort of year one in a new marketplace, and that, you know, this team is, in my view, by some measure, regardless of whether or not Calgary makes it, the best non-playoff team in the NHL. They were easily the best, the highest gear,

the most young talent, the best at controlling play five-on-five. They were the best non-playoff team in the league this year. And I think a couple things happened that sort of prevented them from getting there. I do think not putting Gunther up lineup, not stunted his development, but I do think it's stunted his five-on-five production. You know, as good and as dominant as he's become. And that shot when he is able to have a little bit of time to release,

it feels pretty automatic five on four. But he wasn't lighting it up five on five throughout the season. And I do think higher quality linemates, no offense to my guy, Barrett Hayden, might have helped, right? I think Cooley, Gunther and Keller, for me anyway, needs to be a fixture for them and they need to fill in what comes underneath that. They've made a good start there. I think that third line is dynamic.

thought the Sergishev ad, you know, I think in retrospect, I like that trade a fair bit more for Tampa Bay, but I still think what Sergishav brought, especially with Kesselring's improvement and Sean Dursey, you know, returning to health and form down the stretch. Stretch has sort of showed us that this team's not too far away. You'd love to see them at a high end, another high end top four guy, but it's not like this is a major reconstruction on the back end. And then, of course, the Connor Ingram context with him entering the player assistance program and the team absolutely grinding Vemelka into dust.

23 straight starts. Well, this is going to be a theme as we go through these teams. Because as I was looking at it, there were a lot of teams that did this, and I think cost themselves juice down the stretch as a result of overworking and overtaxing their key goaltender or their trusted goaltender. I think Utah was probably the single worst offender. I think it's a major reason in addition to, you know, the record in one goal games and sort of the young team mistakes thing. You know, I think it's the major reason that they fell this far short of the playoff bar in the West.

They enter a very fascinating offseason. And the reason why I want to start with them is we already saw them the deadline, right? They extended Kerfoot and Mata and Cole and Belmalka and brought them back moving forward. They're still going to enter this off season at around $72 million in, um, In cap expenditures, McBain, your guy, McBain is the only real RFA they have. They have Machelli's 3.4 million or so to play with. It's only one year left. He's still, I think, shown enough at the NHL level where there should be somewhat interested.

He's obviously fallen kind of out of their plans with north of $20 million in cap space. And in particular, as we talk about the potential of offer sheets becoming more of a tactic for teams to deploy, they're my number one candidate for that because you look at their draft capital situation for 2026, which is what would uh the compensation would account for in any offer sheet they can if they choose to do so on a guy like let's say mat matthew knives for example and i know they kind of want to add size on those wings to compliment guys like keller and coolly they have all their picks they have their first they have three seconds and two thirds as well so if they want to go over nine million on someone with an offer sheet and give up a first second and third in compensation they can pretty comfortably bite that bullet

especially since they're hoping that first isn't going to be a lottery pick anymore with the addition of that player and their kind of trajectory on the way up as an organization. I had this theory earlier, and so I'm glad that you seem like you're on board with it and you buy into it. I'm going to start taking them really seriously more so than I do already when they upgrade the Schmaltz position. Not that he's not a fine player in his own right, but you look at his usage and how he's second on the team amongst forwards in ice time on the power play as well. He's their number one shootout guy. there's a certain deference to him because of his standing in the organization and his tenure there and his age relative to a lot of these other guys. And so he gets all these opportunities in like the highest leverage moments.

And I feel like that would be the most like easily identifiable spot beyond like improving certain depth pieces of being like, let's turn this good player into a great player in this position, keep giving him this usage. And all of a sudden not only is that guy going to be better, but then our other guys in the peripheries are also going to go along for the ride with them. And so there's only the one year left on that deal at 5.8.5 million. I think the actual money owed is quite higher. So I'm not sure what, like, if they even wanted to trade them, what that would look like, it might just be kind of ride it out and maybe toned down his minutes a bit next year organically. Yeah.

But man, like, if you think about it two years from now, just that spot being someone who's a rock star potentially would be incredibly appealing. Well, plus I do think you need to open up a spot for Cooley on PowerPlay 1. Yep. And so the Schmaltz spot would be the, obvious place to go. Now, I have no problem with them finding other answers to sort of their top four mix. I think if you can create a world where Kerfoot is, you know, your 10th top nine forward, right? And you're still going to end up playing him in the top six, probably 40 games of the year because of injuries. You might use them at center some. You might use them on the wing some.

Like, that's the advantage of a guy like Kerfoot, who, by the way, has also added a pretty commendable element of PK dog to his game. So, like, I love him as. in sort of that whole Schmaltz, I think if you're able to bump him, like if your second line sort of starts with Hayton and Schmaltz and you're finding an answer there, I don't think you're scared of that, right? Like, I don't think you're scared of what that second line looks like. Even if, even if you are going out and bringing in a mid-tier, top six answer in unrestricted for agency, if you're rolling Schmaltz, Hayton, and Besser next season as your second line, I don't think that's a problem. No. even if I'd love to see them aim maybe a little bit higher and really sort of be careful to maintain their sort of warp speed, team speed level as a general rule. Yeah, I mean, I think they're pretty well positioned.

Here's my take, though. I think what I'd most like to see them do in terms of approaching this offseason, kind of consistent with some of what they have already done with, you know, in particular, Dylan. Gunther already signing his extension like coolly becomes extension eligible on july one i think that has to be priority number one for them but i'd add hayton and kesslering i think there's this world where yeah yeah the caps going up yeah they're going to have about 20 million in cap space they have a relatively straightforward path to being aggressive this summer but in terms of raw buying power they're kind of middle of the road in terms of their available cap space it's not like they're a heavy hitter cap space cap flexibility wise going into the summer what i do think where i do think

the advantages are going to accrue as as sort of cap growth hits is i think the edge is going to be in buying early and and being right about some of your own guys and and so for me anyway kesslering hayton coolly those guys stand out as players i'd like to see them prioritize maybe going long on, you know, so that they can sort of hit some efficiencies and be the team that has sort of the absolute war chest of cap space maybe next summer or the summer thereafter. I think there's a way for them to do both and sort of up their sizzle from a star talent perspective this summer. But those, like, in terms of building blocks and what I think best practices looks like for this team, I think getting coolly extended on July 1 would be a real

statement of intent, a real declaration that this team is serious and has a serious plan going forward. A fun wrinkle for them is they end the season Tuesday night in St. Louis, and we talked about how well they're playing. And all of a sudden, they do have a chance to play a decisive role in this Western Conference wildcard picture. It turns out we were right all along, maybe not in the way we thought. But you look at the current situation with the wild at 95 points and 81 games. They play the the ducks on Tuesday. The blues at 94 and 81. They play Utah, as I said. And then the flames at 90, in 79 they play the sharks, the knights and the kings, and the knights and the kings at that point might be resting guys with their playoff seating already locked up. I'm very curious to watch that game

and see how unfolds considering how well they've been playing and what a matchup that could be for the blues. And I think this is a good kind of opportunity for us to lump in what we saw this weekend from those teams I just mentioned, right? On Friday night, we saw the Wild going to Calgary. The Flames just emptied the clip on them. I mean, the Wild kind of no-showed that game, but I want to give more credit to the flames because they just took it to them. They were up for nothing until garbage time. That Lomburgini breakaway goal had me absolutely levitating. I loved his reaction to it.

It was everything you need to know about Ryan Lomburg, just complete aura. The flames must have been loving Saturday night for a stretch there, right? Because heading into the third period, the wild were losing two nothing to the Canucks. The blues were losing, one nothing to the crackin. And they're like, man, this out of town scoreboard is shaping up perfectly for us to all of a sudden make this incredibly compelling. Both those teams come back. The Blues wind up getting a one point in a shootout loss. The Wild wined in overtime. But there is still, I think a funny scenario is still alive here in the West Wild Card where Calgary wins out. They finish for 96 points. The Wild lose to the ducks. They finish for 95

in Wild Card 2. And then the Blues miss out if they lose to this Utah team because of the regular regulation wins tiebreaker. And that would be incredible that after that 12-game winning streak, how well they played under Jim Montgomery. Everything we spoke about for weeks now, they still fell a point short. We'll see how it plays out. But I do think that that is one legitimately interesting storyline heading into this final week of the regular season. Yeah, that could be fun. It is the second leg of a back-to-back for Utah.

Are they going to play Vemelka both games? Well, I was telling you, I feel like at this point, him finishing with this 25 straight game stretch is like... Locked in? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think though it would be a baller move. from them to rest him against Nashville to really take a all in on Tuesday. Go all in on Tuesday against the Blues.

I think that would be a cool way for Utah to sort of begin to build some rivalries with some of the teams in their conference or a division. The Wild looked dead in the water, especially after the Friday game and how I said, like they showed no life at all. They were playing fine enough in the first two periods, but obviously didn't have anything to show for it on the scoreboard, and they scored a couple goals. It was a beautiful overtime winner with that connection between Caprizov and Zuccarello.

we're going to talk more about the wild later in this context, but just looking at the ice time in that game, and obviously Spurgeon had a very scary injury on Friday night. You saw Brock Faber play 33 and a half minutes. And by the way, dominate. Yeah, but 33 and a half minutes after playing 28 or so the night before, so over 60. And by the way, this wasn't like old Ryan Souter playing 35 minutes.

No, just kind of coasting route there, yeah. No, no, he was all out. Like there were entries, there was him skating through guys. I mean, those were tough, tough minutes for, favor. And you saw Boldie 27, Caprizov 26, Erisannock 25. I mean, obviously their season was kind of on the line because they lost that game. They would be in real trouble. They wouldn't control their own destiny. So at least now they do so heading in. But yeah, I think it's shaping up to be a really fun week there. Any other notes on this or do you want to move on to the rest of the West? Because we just

did 15 minutes on Utah. Yeah, let's move on to the rest of the West. All right. And we're doing West this segment and then East next? That's what we're going to do. I think that makes sense. Let's do the sharks. Okay. Who are going to finish 32nd with the best lottery odds again. I think it's fair to say they executed this tank perfectly, right? Not only the Blackwood trade in season and giving 50 starts to this combination of Georgia Ivanacheck and Georgi Romanov.

They gave Ascarov a little taste. He got hurt. They kind of, I assume he'll play 45 to 50 games next year and give them a much better chance. In those games, they had 26, one goal losses and were pretty competitive in a lot of them, and then just wound up losing, which I think my great was, pretty happy about. I think the biggest development for me with the sharks, beyond Macklin Celebrating coming in and immediately being the real deal and just blowing us away,

even with our heightened expectations, Will Smith, who I wanted to talk to you about. 30 points in 31 games since January 20th. In that time, they're up 30 to 17 in his 5-15 minutes. And I've really loved seeing him kind of recalibrate in real time, right? Because early in the year, we were talking about how he was struggling a little bit with the pace. He looked a little bit overwhelmed, which is understandable for a player coming from the NCAA. And sort of in real time, he's been stacking together more and more with each game, um, scoring a bunch now, figuring out the NHL speed, so much more confidence. You watch that game, speaking of the wild last week, and they got Caprizov and Erickson

back. They scored eight goals themselves. And Celebrini and Smith gave them everything they could handle in that game. They essentially just John Snow style stood in the middle there with their swords out and just like challenged them and took them off. to the brink in that game and that was an incredibly fun game to watch and so I love what I'm seeing there I think we both agree Mike Greer's done a tremendous job here over the past whatever year and a half two years of leveraging contracts into future assets they have seven picks in the first

four rounds this year six in the first four rounds next year they enter you talk about the cap space mileage for Utah they have under 45 million on the books heading into next season I'd love to see them, obviously, in a pragmatic way, but be aggressive, targeting guys that could shake loose in that 24 to 28-year-old window to help some of these young forwards out, get them to puck more consistently, actually become a serious NHL team,

even if it's not necessarily competing for a playoff spot next year. Because as we're going to talk about with the Blackhawks, for example, for all the good vibes we've seen in San Jose, I think they're a pretty cautionary tale, I think, in terms of how it can go from year-on excitement and being a cute story regardless of the losing, being like, well, we have this generational young center. We're set for the future. And then if you don't show signs of like legitimate growth the next season as a team,

everything quickly sours into being like, oh my God, like this is a disaster. This guy's so unhappy. He looks miserable. What's going to happen moving forward? Have they blown this opportunity? And so it's going to be, it's very easy to tear it down the way my career is done. I think he's done a good job in doing so. but I feel like this summer will be very fascinating to see how they approach it and what they choose to do with all these resources.

Yeah, and yeah, I think the fact that you saw the sort of in-season improvement that you did from Will Smith, honestly, I think Worsowski and his performance this year, I think gives you a lot. Like, they would blow games. They would blow those one-goal games and he was always unhappy about it. You know, there was no satisfaction in the losing, but they would, there was still lightness in terms of how that team seemed to carry itself. Yeah, I won't say he was pulling his hair out because he, I think he's pretty cognizant of that.

He doesn't have very many despair, but he looked quite distraught. Yeah, I'm just saying they, I thought they got that right. I thought that, I think that's a difficult thing to get right. That balance between tolerating losing and not making it a complete death march, just because you're a team that's in the sort of state that they are. Macklin Celebrini, I think what really stands. out to me over the course of the season when I think about it. And the goal that he scored against the Wilde, I thought was a really good example.

The 4-4-3 goal that briefly gave them a late second period lead before the Wild pulled it out with Yowell Ericksonek going Newk. What was that Thursday? Yep. Where he drives it through the neutral zone. And then he covers for a pinching D sort of off the retrieval and makes a nice play up top. And then it's him looping back who gets the pass and cuts sort of slot line. for a lovely finish on Philip Gustafson, I mean, or maybe it was Flurry, but on the wild

gold figure. And that sequence there really captured for me something that I do think separates Celebrini from a lot of the other elite young players we see come into the league who aren't McDavid anyway, which is his skating is just NHL Pro ready. And I don't know that that's as true for even Connor Bedard. I think that's been standout over the course of the season and when you marry that with his control of the game his ability to just never receive a bad pass

because he has so much just juice, so much control over his environment. Just a phenomenal player. There's still obviously a lot of work to do in San Jose in terms of how their team is positioned. I don't know that we're going to watch this team pull out of this next year and frankly I don't think they're designed to. You know, you see Couture's contract lasts for another three seasons.

Godreau's contract lasts for another three seasons. Vlasic is still on the books next year. Eric Carlson's retention goes for another two seasons beyond this one. Hurdle's retention goes beyond that. Martin Jones's dead money goes through 2027. I mean, they are in a spot where... I mean, they have 50 million, though, to add. Not that they're going to be a cap team next year, but...

For sure. But I'm just saying that they... are ultimately still going to be somewhat restrained. To me, the sharks and the Blackhawks who will get to as well are the teams that need to go all in on, or consider going all in on some of those offer sheets. And maybe they're lower-end ones, maybe they're more inconvenient offer sheets than Matthew Nyes for 10 million. But I think those teams really need to be cognizant of leveraging that space, you know, in Chicago's case, far better than they have.

and in San Jose's case, far better than Chicago has. I think more than anything, we saw signs of them doing smart things with that over the course of the season, the Blackwood sort of by low, cell high, being sort of a prime example. Yeah, Walman, Granlin, like, we've been a really good job with that. Really good job of that. And they need to keep that going because I still think this is sort of a project that's, you know, I still think 18 to 24 months out from us expecting them to take more significant steps forward. And I feel like what we've seen from Will Smith and, like, being a legitimate running made, they can riff with Macklin Salabrini.

Yep. It's such a massive differentiator here with all due respect to Ryan Donato's 30-goal season and Frankie Nazar showing real glimpses and flashes. That's a very important development for them. Do you want to quickly end with the Blackhawks here kind of while we're lumping them together before we go to break? I don't have that much in you or profound to say about them. Obviously, it's going to be imperative this offseason for them to in Conradar's final year of ZLC. get him some help, throw him a life raft. Bertuzi and Tara Vinen are the only two guys in their roster making north of $5 million.

They similarly have a ton of cap space to the sharks. I guess in the theme of saying goodbye and doing the eulogies, we can say goodbye to Pat Maroon and Alec Martinez, who played their last NHL games, two of the biggest winners, in my opinion, of the 2010s, and kind of it being a reality of the NHL and pro sports in general, but also sort of sad to just like see two guys like that. right off into the sunset in this fashion on this Blackhawks team.

And two guys who were pretty unique. You know, Martinez was like that third pair, just like destroying soft minutes monster in the early part of his career on the LA Kings and had a lot of puck moving juice and obviously scored that huge overtime goal. The winner, yeah. And, you know, he had exactly the sort of profile where it's like, can he be more? Can he be the top four guy? I'm talking a decade ago and he clearly could.

and then he had this second act where his mobility wasn't what it was, but... He just absorb shots. It just absorbed shots, play quality defense, you know, wins another cup with the Vegas Golden Knights, a pretty cool story. For him, and then Pat Maroon, I mean, Pat Maroon was the ultimate, like, the ultimate, completely unique, fancy stats, All-Star, who kept getting passed over as being a useful piece because, you know, he didn't fit, what people thought, you know, a professional hockey player should look like, frankly.

Right. Or sort of how fast they should be or, you know, how a big bodied forward should play. And over time, I think his extraordinary hockey IQ and just ability to control the puck down low, the ability to control play, which really followed him around throughout his career, I think won out. And he found a niche, won three straight Stanley Cups across two different teams. and honestly is in some ways one of the most quotable and memorable players of the last five or six years despite not being anything close to a star during that time frame.

So I think we'll regard both fondly. I mean, even in 2016, right, when the Oilers went out in free agency and made that big splash, bring in Milan Luchich for $6 million. And it's like you had Pat Maroon on the roster at $2,000 who just does everything better than him already in place and was more productive. To Martinez's point, he blocked, by my account, nearly 2,200 shots. In the NHL and played 130 playoff games, just a remarkable career in terms of longevity and durability and obviously winning, as we said. Want to take our break here? Yep.

All right. Let's take a break here. And we come back. We will jump right back into it. You're listening to the Hockey P.D.O.cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right. We're back here in the Hockey PEDeo cast with our Sunday special eulogizing saying goodbye to the teams that have been eliminated this season. Let's jump right back in it.

We're going to finish up the West here quickly before we get to the east, the ducks. So you mentioned last week, I think. improvement that they've made in terms of the standing, similar to what we just quoted with Utah, where they went from 58 and 59 points the past two years into the 80s, potentially this year, and how that would probably, if you haven't been paying attention or watching these games, be viewed as that legitimate progress you're craving as a rebuilding team. I do think individually, there has been some, right? Most notably, Jackson Lacombe, in year or two after a really rough rookie season last year,

since the new year, he's playing like 24 and a half minutes, winning his five-on-five minutes, doing so nearly 60 point pace. I think he's been remarkable to watch. It's just really tough for me to evaluate some of these young players and some of their struggles along the way, given the circumstances of how we feel about the coaching and how it's lagging behind and whether those players are being put in a position to succeed. So I know that, you know, I was on your show as I am every Friday a couple weeks ago,

and from the Canucks lens you were talking about the idea of a Mason McTavish offer sheet or trading for him and trying to kind of buy low in a sense. because of some of his slow starts this season. And if I were the ducks, I'd be very reticent to make any sort of sweeping judgments on anyone involved until I felt more comfortable that they were being given a fair shake. And so I think that's where we stand with this team right now, right?

No question. And I just think at no point did their form or ability to really control play or sort of dynamism spike until the last week of March in any durable way. Now they're ending the season strong, but again, I just think it's really important to know that this team, from a talent perspective,

you know, when you think about Vatrano, when you think about Strome, when you think about Troiteri, Cologne, Leo Carlson, Cutter Goce, Mason McTavish, Zegris, you know, Lundstrom, Fabri, Leco, like, when you think about their talent up front on the back end and then you think about

how well Dostal played, all season, 20 points matters, but it actually undersells the sort of quantum leap that the talent on this roster should have been able to take. And at no point did their form spike to nearly the level that you'd expect given the wealth of talent up and down this lineup. You know, I'm really high on Cutter Goce for next season. He's probably going to be one of my guys. the fact that all of these guys, all of these young players, that none of the young forwards

anyway took a step forward, that this team played such a dull style of hockey and it didn't really, I don't really believe that it in any way helped them like learn how to win, right? I think this is basically a team that feels like Columbus did last year. I think this team needs to let these guys, they need to implement a system where they can let their young players figure out what they can and can't do at the NHL level and then tamp it down and learn how to win once you've established a gear that's literally blowing teams, blowing opponents off of the ice. This group has the skill level to play that way and to do that. I think they have some of the leaders to you know, do that and to maintain a high level of professionalism down the stretch, which is the best thing

that they've done. Their last two weeks has been like their best stretch of hockey. So I actually see a lot to like with this roster, but I do think a change in, whether it's a change in personnel behind the bench or a change in philosophical approach in terms of how this team's going to play, how aggressive they're going to be as a group, I think that would go an awfully long way in terms of moving this team forward. Yeah, there's somehow 30 seconds still in every defensive metric while also being 32nd on the power play. And so you're just seeing like, and for me, I mean, you mentioned Carter Goce. His glow up recently has been remarkable to bowl. Like he's ripping it, he's seven goals. in his last nine games, him and Leo Carlson

looks so good together. And then you look up, and for the season, those two guys are eighth and ninth on the team in 5-15 usage, playing behind veterans like Kalloran Strobe and Vitrono. Cutter Goce has played just 125 power play minutes in 78 games, not even getting onto the top unit.

And so I'd like to see some change. I'm with you that I still holding my shares and my stock of all the individual young talent, but I need to see something, and I think there's still a lot of work to do in terms of like a fundamental shift. Verbeek has a tremendous opportunity here in that because all of the guys I mentioned, Gochier, Carlson, and McTavish, who's, you know, an RFA this summer, as you noted,

I was wondering about an offer sheet for a player like that. And because none of them popped this season, the Ducks have a pretty intriguing, you know, not by low because those players are going to be well aware of what they're sacrificing if they sign long term. Right. But certainly, nonetheless, a value opportunity. If you can go out and lock those three guys up, the ducks have reams of cap space, right? To like long term, Gunther style deal, seven million-ish across eight years, max term, man, I think you could lock up a potentially really efficient core because I like all of the, I like the games of all three of those players. I think they should be very aggressive about that more than anything else going into the

summer. still got the Canucks Cracken and Predators here to close out the West. I really don't want to spend much time left because I'd rather get to the east. You have any parting shots? To them, obviously, the Canucks a team that you cover on a day-to-day basis has just been a dreadful watch this year, right up with the Rangers in terms of the bottom of my watchability rankings. I'm just worried about how dependent they are on Quinn Hughes. I know people are talking about this rebuilt defense core as a source of optimism. And I think that's fair to an extent, but you watch that game against the Wild last night and they're outshot five to 17.

in the non-Quin-Hughes minutes at five-on-five. And obviously, GameScript has something to do with that, but only something to do with that. The truth is that if you remove Quinn Hughes from the equation, like if he sustains an injury, if whatever happens over the next 18 months, if this club didn't have the Quinn Hughes at the peak of his powers,

they'd be number 32 most bleak team in the NHL by a massive margin. I just, I struggled to get over that in analyzing what this summer should look like. because obviously they're going to do everything they can. Especially because of Hughes, though, there's such an added level of urgency hanging over this organization because if this happens again next year, the clock rail,

I mean, it starts ticking, but it reaches a fever pitch, I think. For sure. And I also just think, at the end of the day, I'm not going to be betting too heavily against them, no matter what they do this summer, because they're going to go into next season and they'll have Quinn Hughes. But at some point, you know, you need to have an awful lot more than that to hang your hat on

or you become what, you know, the oilers were five years ago, and that's not good enough. Well, and especially they're different from a lot of these teams in the sense that a lot of these young teams that are in this bracket that we're talking about today are there in large part because they're young and suck defensively, right? And this Canucks team doesn't under Rick Tocke it, but the sacrifices come offensively where their bottom three to five

in shots, slot shots, and expected goals, and even worse so when he uses an out there. So there's a lot of questions to answer. Quickly on the Predators, who obviously, as we've documented, it went from 12th to 30th this year in the standings despite spending $185 million on July 1st last summer, they do have five picks in the first two rounds. Somehow Barry Trots has lost every single transaction he's made over the past calendar year,

which is a remarkable feat not to have a single like, all right, that was a single or a double for him. They've all been strikeouts. In thinking about the Predators, is it possible? of the most under-talked-about story in the entire league right now is what's going on with Romanozzi. Yeah. Because he has not played since February 25th,

presumably with a concussion, it's being listed and talked about as an upper body injury. He's had an extensive list of them throughout his career. He's 35 this summer. And like for me, considering what he's meant to this organization and how good he still is, that's like a pretty scary proposition

that just because of the predators, like this is, obviously if this was a Canadian team, this would be the lead of Hockey Night and Canada's Saturday headlines every single week, Violet Freeman, but no one's talking about it because it's just like, well, it's been a nightmare season in Nashville and no one cares, and he's just kind of like out of sight, out of mind. But that's pretty frightening. Very frightening.

On some level, I can't get over, like, the Predators structurally still kind of like play okay hockey. They just were so bad. I mean, they're 30 second in goals. Like, it's crazy. considering what they tried to do this summer, this is end result. Especially the evident talent on the roster, and honestly, some of the scoring chances you see them generate when you watch them play.

Not to mention the fact that their goal tending should be fine. I find the predators completely mystifying. I wonder if they just try and execute sort of a mulligan on last offseason. This is going to, this last offseason's errors may take years to unwind. Yeah. Let's get to the east. Well, Seattle real quick. Okay, Seattle real quick.

I think what you've seen from Baneers and right, I know the scoring stats aren't still there for Baneers, but you watch like when they effectively ended the Canucks season when they came in here and just thrashed them five-nothing. The speed right out of the gate, even before they started scoring goals, I know you were texting me, you were like, yeah, this is. If Vancouver doesn't have the speed to handle the set.

This is lights out for the Canucks. They just can't handle it. No. And so building on that speed, and, you know, they made a couple selling moves and trading Gord and Bork, I'd still like to see them even more. Yeah.

The Caco acquisition is a big one. I mean, baneers with Caco seem to work, fleshing that out further. You know, Esamon's been a nice fit for them. I actually like their blue line. And then ultimately, at the end of the day, they have 15, or, yeah, because they love, so they have 16 of a possible 52 points in Grubeauer starts. Yeah. That's the story of their season.

The truth is, is that they were one of those teams that probably should have been in the mix with Calgary and Vancouver and Utah, if not for the fact that their backup goaltending was so appalling. Goaltending, obviously, I think the failures in net have been the story of the Cracken's sort of first three seasons and remained so, even though Joey DeCord was pretty solid. He's felt fall off a bit since the Four Nations break. So that's what they have to solve this offseason. In the world of things you need to solve, it's like we have a bunch of young centers with

speed, a pretty good blue line group. some interesting forwards, but we really don't have a good backup goaltender. I know the market's not super strong or anything this offseason, but in the world of problems to solve, that's like a relatively okay place to be, despite the fact that I still worry a lot about the elite ceiling on this team, most notably that I don't think they have one. Yeah.

Do you want to include the blue jackets in this conversation? Because as we're recording, they're still mathematically alive, although it would take a pretty remarkable set of circumstances. I think out of respect, we'll wait on Calgary and, Columbus. We've got too many other teams to get to. I wanted to talk Blue Jackets so bad. The Utah East. If you did that, we wouldn't get to anyone else.

They lead the league in 5-15 goals this year. And we need to do Boston. No, we don't. Yes, we do. I tweeted a stat, and this is probably a reflective similar of Utah of, like, a young and inconsistent group. They have 15 games this season with six or more goal outbursts.

Yeah. Another one of them happening on Saturday. And then they have 16 games where they've been held to zero or one goals. Totally. And so you talk about Seattle's last. of ceiling, that's the opposite concern here. It's like the ceiling is pretty clear. We saw it for large stretches this season, and so there's a lot to be excited about their red wings.

Sure. Ninth straight year missing the playoffs, 32nd in the league on the penalty kill. Now, I'm of two minds of this, because on the one hand, you talk about building blocks and especially this exercise being framed as stuff to salvage or build off of from this season.

I think what we saw from Simon Edvinson coming in and playing his first full season. Marco Casper coming in. Marco Casper had an awesome rookie. He leads the team with a 54% expected goals. He's a 5-1-5. He's going to score 20 goals. He's a big-time player. Their best players were the young ones they've drafted. Like those guys, cider, Raymond Larkin, like if you look at just remove everything else and you just view it through the lens of how did these players perform, this is a good team. The issue is that every single player they brought in as a veteran that they paid through free agency or acquiring them via trade have been.

have been their worst players. Yep. Like you go on down the line. Comper, Sherrott, Petrie, Teresenko, and Cop are all sub 47%. Expect a goal share of 5-1-5. Whole as well, of course. If we could just tie up Steve Eiserman on July 1st and just keep him in a chamber somewhere

and then release him on July 10th, I feel like a lot of the problems might be solved. Not to mention every time they have a bet placed on X-depth goaltender, right? Villajuso and Cam Talbot and on and on. Like every year, every year I look at what X team has done in net. And I think at the end of the day, they're going zero goalie and I don't know it might work. You know, like their bets as good as anyone else is, don't pretend you know.

And every year, I'm like, except Detroit. Detroit actually did the wrong thing. So, yeah, I mean, that part of it is tough. But look, I still think, yeah, so I think the really nice rookie campaign from Casper, Raymond already broke out, but I still think it mattered that he repeated as a point per game plus guy who had extraordinary juice because I think he's solidified himself now as a dude. And then Edmondson, I thought, took huge strides. I've always kind of been skeptical, but his traits are just too good. That's all going to play. And I just was really impressed. I thought they were too relying on the power play. But I do think because of what we saw from that trio of young guys especially, you know, I actually think. I actually think. thought there was meaningful progress under the hood here. Yep. Over the course of the season.

Now, only average buying power going into the summer, 22-ish million. I think I'd like to see them bet long on the duo of large adult sons in Soder Blum and Bergren. But otherwise, I just think this has got to be big swing season for them. Like, they need to be, you know, the team bugging Buffalo and hoping they pay. or the team bugging the Canucks about Patterson. Yeah. This is the team that more than any other team needs to take, you know,

a Chickarin-Dubois-style swing to, like, really give them a shot in the arm here. Well, Petrie's off the books of summer, a hole and charade of one more year. Yeah. And this is a classic pro-scouting versus amateur scouting discussion, right, because of what I just said and what we've seen from them in the past three to five years. You experienced this. I'm not comparing Steve Eiserman to Jim Benning. I think he really belongs in his own.

class. Yes. And you could lump in maybe Pierradorian there as well who kind of experienced similar shelf lives and sinus cycles in this sense. I think everyone's being like, all right, well, all this bad money on these guys who were clear mistakes are coming off the books. The issue is that what we saw with those two guys I just mentioned is that they would just repeat the same song and dance.

As soon as guys would come off the books, they would just go and be like, we have caps cap's face and then bring in similar players. Or worse, they'd trade those guys for guys with term in big, risky job salvaged job-saving bats. You hope that Eiserman has enough leeway to avoid that panic move, but this is a summer where he has to take a big swing, I think. Especially after last summer when they

cleared the Walman contract, paid a hefty price to do so. We're kind of sized up as like, well, they're going to be in the market and then didn't really, like, they brought in Tarzanco. Yeah. Not good enough. The Sabres, their Atlantic Division Brethren, who are 26th in point

percentage, despite the fact of their third in the league in 5-on-5 goal scoring. 23rd in power play. And even worse. Yeah. And so the special teams has been an abomination. And this isn't something new. Tage Thompson, 33, 515 goals.

No one else is more than 26. Rosmast Dahlin. Up 21 in his 515 minutes. They're down 15 in all the other minutes. I think what we've seen from those guys, Paterka, who is 65 points in 74 games. Zach Benson, who's not scoring maybe the way people would like. But you look under the hood at his 515 numbers,

and especially to defensive metrics, he's posting and I think he's at an incredible season. I think it's going to be the same story as always with Buffalo though, right? Entering this summer, I think they need to be aggressive about spending their money the right way. I'm very skeptical that they will. I'd like to see them avoid stepping on the Bowen-Byrum landmine and paying in because you look at his splits away from Dahlene and that isn't the type of player that you should

be spending significant cap on moving forward. And then, as we said, with the special teams, whether it's the assistant coaches or whether it's Lindy Ruff, I'm not advocating for them to have a new head coach because they've gone through so many of them during this era, but they need to fix the special teams because a team this good at 515 should not be 26 in the league, and it can't keep recurring. Yeah. So I feel like their biggest issue is a morale issue. There's a feeling that this is always how it's going to be in Buffalo.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. and I think that's exacerbated by the lack of experience within the organization. You've got Lindy Ruff, obviously, who's an old hand. But, you know, at some point, like, not that I rate Ken Holland as an elite GM at the stage of his career, but I think he'd be a game changer in terms of how that organization views itself. I think they need some experience. I just think you need to give that organization, like, a sense of change and a sense of a steady experienced hand at the wheel.

do, I'm telling you. Ken Holland would come in and be like, I know you paid Jordan Greenway? I'm going to pay him again on top of that. I will say it's a delicate balance that they have to achieve because I also think in a lot of subtle ways underneath, what's more obvious beyond the results, this team has actually accumulated a lot of talent

and swung and hit in my view, like the McLeod trade I thought was a win for them. And he's a guy who they should go long on because I think he's really good. And I think he showed that over the course of the season. there's talent here and the club is quietly in my view arguably among the better position teams in the entire league for an area of for an era of upper limit of the salary cap acceleration given that nearly their entire core save petrca and i guess mcclod if you want to count him there i don't um is locked up long term right and like most of those deals are going to age well and even those that don't like samuelson right aren't going to be that painful in a world with a hundred and fifteen million dollar cap in a couple of years. So I don't see this as a team that needs to materially alter course.

More than anything, I think this is like a gut check summer where what the organization needs to do is find a way to turn the page without deviating from sort of what they've been doing the last couple of years. And I do think bringing in someone with some weight to sort of rebrand the feeling around the organization, I think more than anything is what they need. hearing you talk about this upper limit salary gap, instead what you're going to get is like a new sound system and like some random auxiliary piece to the building or something

instead of actually spending it meaningfully on the players in classic pagula fashion. We have like five minutes left here. Let's go fast. Rangers, Flyers, Islanders, Bruins, Penguins. Yeah. Rangers are in a world of hurt. Like the J.T. Miller trade was a good one

and still unduly reckless given their profile as a team just because it didn't move the needle enough, right? Like they shot, after completing that trade, they shot nearly 12% five on five and got decent goal tending and still only outscored their opponents by six. Like that's evidence of wider structural flaws. I think what happens when elite players begin to age and we sort of saw that with Zabanajad and Crider to a greater extent this season. And actually the example that I'd point people to is like what's happened to Ben and Sagan

prior to the injury this season in Dallas where it's like those guys are still useful. Yeah. But they have to play down lineup. up. And if you've got 17 million worth of guys who are contributing at like fringe, second line, top end, third line levels, you need to be so efficient at finding Miro and Rupert and Jason Robertson to build around it and sort of keep making progress. Kandre Miller, Adam Fox, obviously LaFrenier, didn't make nearly enough progress. And I don't know that they have enough horses sort of coming up to hold this edifice up,

given their surface area exposure to guys on the wrong side of 30, who, you know, I think are still going to be helpful, but maybe can't drive elite results or aren't good bets to keep driving elite results the longer this goes. They've been an abomination, defensively just watching them structure. I love, like, the past week or so, pure labia-led choosing to just give them the silent treatment instead of coaching.

Yeah. Well, that's my one bit of optimism is that because they're so wildly unstructured, and I think a lot of that falls on the coaching. They actually have a relatively compelling out here. Right. I don't think it would take the world's greatest coach. Like, I think a Travis Green quality defensive coach is worth like five to ten points for that team this season.

And if that's, again, if that's your issue, I think that is fixable in a summer. I'm disgusted by them. I'd still rather be the penguins and hold a short position on them. The flyers are interesting to me because they have, seven picks in the first two rounds. They have like 30 million in cap space. Obviously a coach opening as well potentially. And you talked about the Red Wings and Pedersen. I mean, I think it's been well documented. Their desire to add a top flight center and especially give someone with

high-end skill to play with Mitch Gaw as nice as Sean Kutriar has been here in the second half. I'm keeping my eye on them because I feel like they, I mean, we'll see. Danibir really wants to take a long view here and play the long game. He should. He should for one more year. I think the truth is, in my mind anyway, is like, this is a team that has to resist the temptation of thinking that they're closer than they are because they are actually close. Like, you give this team average goaltending this year, they're right there on the fringe of the Eastern Conference playoff picture, right? Yeah. And yet, I think when you sort of look at what they have to do to really clear out their books and hit and given sort of their overall, uh,

half-pick positioning and such. I think they have a lot of purchasing power if they want to use it. And they probably should if they can land, you know, you mentioned a Pedersen type or a Bennett or an Eelers. Like if you're grabbing a star player, fine. But outside of the top guys, I think I hope to see this group steal itself take a beat, flesh out their depth with low-cost,

gambles in unrestricted free agency and spend the money instead and getting out ahead of maybe some longer deals for, you know, Forster and Cates and, you know, maybe even Drysdale, I think they have to let the last of that dead money expire and really go all in next summer. Yeah. And so I think this is one of those, you know, this will be like a test of how significant, how stubborn, let me put it that way, Breyer and Company could be, because I like the trajectory they're on and I actually think they're pretty close to being good.

I just don't think that this is the summer to go all out to achieve it. You adding Bennett into that conversation was remarkable. Why? As star players, Eelers, Pedersen, Bennett. Wow, look, I mean, he's going to be paid like it. Yeah. Quickly end on the Bruins, who are down to or up to the fourth best lottery odds. Yeah, well, that's, they snuck in there.

They were in the playoff mix five weeks ago. I know. Well, then they sold everyone at the deadline. I know, but, I mean, but for good returns, I mean, mint in a first three seconds. Like, they did well. and this is a five-player draft. Yeah. Like they got into the mix.

They're getting a Schaefer, well, not Schaefer unless they win the lottery, but they're getting, you know, one of that Misa Martone, de Roche or De Noia group of players. This is how a mature team, a class of the league, always competitive team,

seizes the opportunity when they're going nowhere and rapidly make sure that they'll have a direction going forward. This was brilliant work by Sweeney and Co as much as no one in the Boston area wants to hear. The most under-talked about stat of the season is David Pasternak being the only player in the league with over 65-15 points. He has 64. He's fourth in the league in scoring with 102 points. Next on his team, and the only guy with 50-plus points is Morgan Geeky with 55, and he has used them as a backboard repeatedly to get those points along the way.

Just having an outrageous season, obviously not going to be on a lot of hard ballots because of the fact that the Bruins. of the fourth worst team in the league, but man, he has been just unbelievable, especially at the start of the year when they fire Montgomery. I was like, oh, well, he's not producing and he's struggling, and he's getting paid so much and just rattled off an absolute rock star season. I think if there's one thing to be concerned about, it's that after the deadline when they made those deals, guys like Mason Lurray didn't really hack it in sort of larger roles. I'd add the same for Middlestatt.

It's not like the coil for Middlestat was like, we got paid and we teared down and we still have a cornerstone guy or something to build around like middle stat struggled immensely. So I think if there was one negative that I'd put on this, it's not all the losing. To me, that's a massive win for the organization. It's that some of the guys you were hoping to see a little bit more from as they sunk to the bottom kind of weren't able to pull that off. All right. So here's the deal. Normally you'd be like, all right, these guys talk for 50 minutes.

Say goodbye. We're going to hear from them next Sunday. We're not leaving. The show goes on. and we are going to take this to a part two. We're giving the people a mega Sunday special to commemorate the last regular season episode from us. And on the other side,

we're going to start talking about the playoffs. So we're going to see you there. Thank you for listening to the Hockey-PedioCat streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.