The Hockey PDOcast - Playoff Mailbag

Episode Date: April 26, 2023

John Matisz joins Dimitri to answer listener questions about the biggest surprises this postseason, preferences when it comes to team building philosophy, and how much stock to put into matching up with your opponent vs. just playing your game.This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

It's 2015. It's the Hockey Pediocast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey Peetogast. My name is Dimitra Villapovich. And joining me is my buddy John Mattis. John, what's going on, man? Hey, not much. Here we are, what, week and a half into the playoffs. How are you feeling like, are you just in the middle of the grind? Are you kind of all in on this thing right now? Yeah, I mean, round one is the best, right? Because you're getting, it's slowing down a little bit now because they're spacing out the

series of giving teams an extra day off like between games four and five or whatever for the most part but yeah you're generally getting four awesome games every single night so that's very cool i as an analyst i prefer round two i think because you cut it in half and it gives you just more sort of room to think about this stuff more critically and take time with each series and let it soak in a little bit and also you get more sample size of them playing playoff games as well right so you start getting closer to like the 10 game range for a lot of these teams. And it's like, all right, now I can meaningful data to work with. But for fans and from like an entertainment perspective,

round one of the NHL playoffs is like unmatched in my opinion. Yeah, I feel like every year there's a tweet that ends up in my feed that's like, someone who doesn't watch hockey and is in the States or wherever like a non-hockey market. And they're like, this is wild. I can't believe what's happening in the NHL right now. Does this happen every year? It's like, yeah. The first two weeks of the playoffs is bonkers.

Absolutely. Yeah. especially when you get into playoff over time. That's when the good stuff comes out. Okay, so this is the plan for today, John. We are going to do a mailbag. We've opened it up. We've gotten some listener questions,

some really fun ones, some really like thought-provoking, alternate universe, hypothetical ones, which is always great. It gives us a chance to dream big and have some fun with it. So we'll see how many of these we can get through. I've picked out around like seven or eight of them. Hopefully,

you and I always run long and we'll probably only get to like three or four of them, but we'll do our best here. So here's question one. And this is, I think, I think the best banger of the bunch. So we're going to start off really strong here, totally offside asks, if you could build a starting lineup of only players on current playoff teams, who would you choose? You can't have more than one player from the same team. And everyone needs to play their natural positions.

So, you know, you can't have centers playing on the wing. You can't have left shot defensemen playing on the right side. You need to go by the book here. So we'll do that. And it's good for us to do this now because when you and I last spoke, we did our all NHL teams, right? And people generally liked it. I got a few comments from people being like,

I wish you had strictly done like left shot, right shot defensemen as opposed to having first team be like two left shot guys and then second day being two right shots. But that's neither here or there. So I'll give you the floor here. Let's start. Let's go center, left wing, right wing, and then left shot D, right shot D goalie and kind go in order that way. And we'll can talk about some of the options, some of the names you might have kicked around, what you struggled with and what you ultimately settled on. So what was

the, in constructing this team from the middle out, what was your sort of thought process or center? Is it as simple as you just go with McDavid, next question? Or did you actually give this thought beyond that? Well, given the filters of this question where you can only have one player from each team on your starting lineup, I considered other players, but I ultimately went with McDavid. obviously in the moment right now, some people might go, they might be screaming for Leon Drysidal because he's been so incredible. Or hey, maybe there's a Dallas Stars fan out there that's like, have you seen Rupert Hince over the last two weeks? But no, I went with McDavid, just kind of kept it simple. And like he just brings so much dynamism. I don't know how to say

the word, dynamicism. Dynamicism, yeah. I don't even know that's a word, but you know what I mean. That like anyone who plays with him is going to instantly get their stock boosted. just an amazing starting point. I think, yeah, kind of you're overthinking it, in my opinion, if you're going with someone else. Though I would, you know, since the filters ask for one per team, you know, I could understand someone going with someone else. Yeah. I gave McKinnon some serious thought. I think McDavid is the better player.

I was in Seattle, as I've said on the show, this past weekend, and I got to watch McKinnon in person. And it was a phenomenal experience. I'd seen him here in Vancouver in regular season games in the past, but playoff Nathan McKinnon, just going 110 miles an hour on every single shift and just taking over at the end of that game was a sight to behold. And so I considered that, but the abs just have so many other options in constructing this team that I felt like taking him here, even if it was a toss-up, which just wouldn't make sense strategically. So it was between McDavid and Trace. even though I guess technically both guys,

Trisettel's playing on the wing right now, technically over the past two games, but just let's take this question by the letter of the law and consider Drexedola Center because that's what its natural position is. And so I did McDavid, but that's the easy part. Where it gets interesting here is when you get into left and right wing. So let's go with that.

What do you have here? Yeah, so I had Jason Robertson on left wing to have a finisher next to McDavid, and I just love how this guy's brain works and also a little bit of two-way capabilities. I mean, let's face it, McDavid, although he's improved in those areas, isn't exactly winning Selke's here.

And did you want my right wing at the same time or no? Yeah, give it to me. Okay, so I went with Matthew Kachuk, who, like, on NHL.com is under left wing, but he's, you know, right wing. Yeah, so I don't know what that's about. And, I mean, the right wing was way more difficult to choose because you've got Kutra, Rantan, Marner,

Stone, Pasternak. But I like the disruptive force of Matthew Kachukchuk. Like he's literally, if I were to pick favorite players to watch. I mean, he's top five. And again, like brings a different element. I mean, McDavid is that finesse player, Robertson, cerebral, and then you got Kachuk on the other side. So that's sort of how I constructed my forward group.

I love it. Okay. You ready for mine? Yes. I have Matthew Kichuk as well on my right wing. All the names that you mentioned I considered. on my left wing, I have Brad Marchand. Yes, okay.

And also just plan this out. I love the idea. Obviously, they're playing against each other in this series. I think through what four games so far, Brad Marchand has been remarkably disciplined. I believe he hasn't taken a single penalty yet, which if you were betting on that pre-series, but you would have gotten some pretty good odds on that.

Matthew Kachuk, of course, has been much less disciplined, and we've seen him try to start many fights after whistles and take a few cheap shots and runs at players, most recently getting into a bit of a dustup with Linus Al Market than the game four. But I would have gone, Robertson. I just, I wanted to keep my star slot open, which I'm going to mention here in a second.

And that sort of tilted me towards, you know, I considered Caprizov, of course, and we'll talk about him more later. And of the next question, you know, Panera and Meyer, Biaver Hege. Right-wing certainly feels like just going by the rules of what the players are playing at right now. Right wing feels much superior from a talent perspective than left wing.

And so I just went, I went Marshaun, and I love this idea of having him, McDavid, Marcia and Cichuk top line for so, so many reasons. It's just, it's perfect.

So that's what I got. Let's go to the defenseman now. So give me your left and right wing, a right, left and right shot, sorry, at the same time. Yeah,

so I went with Victor Headman and Kail McCarr. And the rationale, was kind of recency bias with Hedman in a sense where like he's clearly injured, right? The guy is not 100%. You don't go from missing, you know, a full game and a large portion of another game. And you're just magically 100%. So what he's done so far in the playoffs and it's just really stuck in my mind. And obviously, you know, Hall of Famer, first ballot, like there's nothing to dislike about him.

I think so highly of him in general. and then McCar just does everything that Hedman does essentially but at such a high of pace. He's just, him and McDavid on the same team would just be absolutely ridiculous. And I considered the guys like Josh Morrissey, Miro Hayskin,

Charlie McAvoy, like Hayskin is just such a fun player to watch. He makes the game, I think, honestly, like behind maybe McDavid and a couple other guys, Haskinen, I think, makes the game look easier than pretty much everyone else. There's something about him and his effortless skating and he doesn't get rattled. And so I think really highly of him.

But yeah, I end up going with Hedman and McCar in terms of like, okay, where am I going to use my Tampa guy? Where am I going to use my Colorado guy and slotting them in that way? No, that's perfectly fair. I mean, headman, the past two games, just showing how dominant he can be, right? Like when he's on the ice, just how they control in the offensive zone, how he tilts the ice. how smart he is in the offensive zone with his movement and ability to extend plays and get involved and pinch down the weak side for opportunities. Like he's just,

what a player. But I went with Miro Haskinen as my left shot D. Now, I'm counting that because he is a left shot defenseman. He spent the large majority of his NHL career playing on the right side just to, because he's that good and to facilitate the handedness of their other defensemen, including in this series where he's, you know,

he spent a lot of this regular season actually playing on a strong side with Colin Miller. And then they wanted to promote Ryan Suter up to the top pair. And so they moved Hayskin and back to the right side. But he is a left shot defenseman. So I have him.

And, you know, he's, he's for me, for my money, establishing himself already this early in his career as like, I don't want to say like a clutch player because I think he's just so good throughout the regular season as well. It's not like it's something new.

But his track record, now in the postseason is something that I think we need to take stock of, right? If you go his last three times in the postseason, so the bubble run, where they made the Stanley Cup final last year, seven game series against Calgary, and then the first five games or, yeah, five games of this series against Minnesota. He's played 38 games. In that time, he's played 755 on five minutes. The stars have given up 19 goals against in that time, which comes out to about 1.5 goals

against per hour. he's taken three penalties in that time, which kind of speaks to just like how, because of his skating and because of how smooth this game is, he just never really gets himself into trouble. And if he does, he can get himself quickly out of it. And so far in this series,

he's leading the league, playing over 29 minutes per game, just does everything for the stars and just such a phenomenal player. So I just had a hit at him and then Kail McCar on the right side. And the idea of the skating with those two guys with McDavid, good luck constructing whatever other team you want. I'm going to take my chance.

is against you there. But yeah, I certainly considered Adam Fox, Charlie McAvoy on the right side, and then, uh, headman, Taves, Hampus Lindholm,

Slavin on the left side. But I feel pretty good about the, uh, about the skating and skill of my, uh, of my team right now. And in that, I went with Igor Shisterkin.

And, and I had considered just going with Fox as my right shot defenseman, but then I just wanted to keep the slot open to take Shastirkin as my goalie. Um, certainly considered Audinger, all Mark Sorokin there,

but I thought Chistiriken was kind of, the obvious pick. I assume you had him as well, considering you haven't taken any Rangers yet. Yeah, I was thinking, I originally had Fox in that right-handed defenseman spot, but then I'm like, do I want to use my Ranger guy on Fox when I got Schisturkin right there? And when McCar is available, yeah. Yeah, so, and like for goalie, I considered Sorokin, Ottinger, Allmark. And somehow my team, so it's McDavid, Robertson, Kach, Hedman, McCar, and Chasturkin. No leaves, no Bruins, which like is kind of crazy given the talent on both those teams.

but it's the depth that some of these positions is really incredible. Like even as we discussed briefly there, the left wing versus the right wing. The right wingers are. There's so many dynamite left winger or sorry, right wingers in the game right now. It's pretty wild. Yeah, there's some overlap between our teams. I got to say it on my end will just skate absolute laps around yours. So good luck matching up with my group in round one.

No, this was a, that was a fun little exercise. All right. Second question here from Jonathan. Jonathan actually had three questions that I thought were interesting. We'll see how many of them we can get through because I do want to save some space for other listeners that chimed in. But when you deliver, we got to acknowledge it. Jonathan asks watchability rankings.

What have you do, we don't have to do rank each series for out of the eight. Maybe just give the listeners like ones that you've enjoyed the most in your viewing so far. Because obviously sometimes there's overlaps in these games. And I think maybe if you have no rooting interests, people might be curious of which one they should gravitate towards or kind of make a point of checking out if there's other options available. Yeah, I think at the top of my list is Colorado Seattle. I love the star power versus depth dynamic, the storyline there. You know, you talked about the electric atmosphere in Seattle.

I mean, Colorado's known to have a great playoff crowd as well. I mean, even just the fact that the series is tied to too, too is nice. You got some controversy there with the McCar suspension. I think there's just a little bit of everything in that series. And no real downsides. Whereas Toronto, Tampa, who I think is deserving of at least a second spot, maybe the third. Even though like there's great storylines there as far as the team histories, you know, you've got Tampa trying to go for a fourth cup final.

you've got Toronto trying to finally break through. You've got multiple games that go to overtime. There's been more goals in that series than any other. There's been fights. But there's something about that series where there hasn't been enough time where both teams are playing well. And I realize that's kind of like hard to wrap your head around because by nature when one team is playing well,

the other team's probably not going to go tit for tat. But there's been a lot of blowout garbage time in that season. series. So I docked to them a little bit there. And I'll be honest, like, I'm a little biased towards that series as far as I've been really focusing on it. And I have been entertained. And then I'll give you one, the third one, which I mentioned, Edmonton, L.A., you know, the dry-sidal magic, the incredible run he's on as far as producing points for the Oilers. It was cool to see them come back from three goals in game one. I think Adrian Kempe's been super fun to watch and

Edmonton's goaltending situation with Jack Campbell somehow getting into some action when you know that seemed like a worst case scenario I think that adds a little edge to the series too so those are the three that jump off the page and I'll give honorable mention to Dallas Minnesota

it sounds like you pretty much just ranked every series there then no I good shout for Adrian Kempay because obviously with all the star power in that series he's not going to get a lot of attention, but it's obviously scored a couple really beautiful goals so far in the series. And I just love, I love the simplicity of his game, right?

I don't mean this to come off as an insult, but I think I've seen him pass the puck once and it wasn't really for him and he just never did it again. And I love it because he's such a straight line player and that's kind of the MO of the Kings, right, to a fault sometimes. But it also is what makes them so effective and his ability to just basically at all times be going north, never even really. He's not a north-south player. He's just going north at all times.

And just putting the puck on net and getting into high-danger areas and creating looks for himself. I love that. So he's just a really fun player to watch you. And very consistent. Like you know what you're going to get because that's his game and he just plays it every single time. I have cracking abs at number one just because I think that game two in particular where,

you know, the abs lose game one at home. everyone's kind of everyone takes note of oh the cracking all right let's see what happens here and then the crack can go out to a two nothing lead early in that game and just seeing sort of the resolve from the reigning champions to it's like it's playoff storyline storytelling heaven right they're like going to the locker room they're like all right enough's enough come back start finally playing to the level we expect from them and then the rest of that game was played at a pace that has not been matched in this postseason so far from what I've seen and so now it's two to heading back to Colorado.

Kail McCar is not available for game five because he's suspended. Awesome series. L.A. Edmonton is right there for me from an entertainment perspective. And so I have those two well above the pack. I get what you're saying about lightning leaves, but the first two games are just essentially a write-off. And then I think it's the series where the least amount of time so far has been spent with the scoreboard within one goal.

So it's just so much of the time has been spent in kind of these like lopsided situations that it's just not for me but like for some of these other series that have been so closely contested I kind of prefer that more so than one team's up

so yeah that's what I got okay so Jonathan his next question is biggest surprise both positive and negative well I actually had Adrian Kempe and surprise may be strong for him but I've just been really impressed with his

start your East Coast bias is shining through there you know four goals and five games another, you know, three assists, 24 shots on goals tied for the playoff lead. I mean, Rupa Hintz is a guy that came to mind, too, as far as leading the playoffs and scoring and just being shot out of the can in every other shift. But again, it's kind of hard to wrap your head around, like, what is considered a surprise, right?

Because both those players had great regular seasons, are, you know, have the toolbox to be game breakers. So I also had Corey Perry down here as far as a guy that looked absolutely. washed up during the regular season. Same with Patrick Maroon. And although they're, you know, he's not playing a tonne. He's playing 1154 over the series per night. And I realize that most of his damage was done early in the season, or sorry, early in

the series. But still, I mean, let's face it, Corey Perry at his age, almost 38, drawing three penalties, having an expected goals percentage of 66 at five on five and also putting up five points so far. He was just a prime candidate to be a non-factor as far as where his trajectory was going with his career. And, you know, it speaks to whatever the hell is in his DNA. You know what I mean?

Like, this guy is not to get too old school, but the guy's got that killer instinct. He just keeps grinding away, you know, going from team to team, whether it was Montreal or other places, trying to win another cup. and I just wanted to show him out. Yeah, no, that's fair. It's certainly been effective in his role. I guess I didn't even consider him for surprise because it's kind of been the Corey Perry experience.

That's what I expect. If anything, you mentioned his expected goal percentage. I'm surprised it's not 66.6. The devil himself, I mean, I have most positive surprise. I'm going to give you two that are just forever going to be connected. Tyler Say Again and Taylor Hall. Oh, see, I'm glad you said that because I was actually thinking that last night. night, I'm like, it's kind of cool the symmetry here with both these guys firing on all cylinders.

They went one, two in the draft. So that's great. I didn't think about that, but that's fantastic. Yeah, Taylor versus Tyler. I mean, it's been a long road here, but both guys have played such a big role for their teams so far. Tyler, say again, has got the four goals stepping up, you know, on the top line and also on the top unit power play with Joe Puevielke out and essentially just playing his role. And then Taylor Hall, four goals, seven points, five of them at five-on-five, particularly in the two games,

after going 1-1 in that series and kind of like being a little bit worried about whether the Panthers play a style that's going to irritate the Bruins. They go on the road and just handle business in both those games and Taylor Hall was their best player, just dominating off the rush,

creating for himself and others. And so I like the idea of just kind of connecting those two once again and I hope it continues because it's a fun story. My negative one is Carol Caprizov and I don't want to be too harsh on him because he's almost certainly still hurt, right? He missed a month at the end of the regular season comes back for the final two games.

He scored a power play goal that was like a tip-in off a point shot in game one, and he has zero points in the next four and a half games, almost five games because that game one was essentially two games jammed into one. And listen, like, he's playing significant minutes against Mero Haskinen, who I just spent a bunch of minutes praising for his one. work and Ryan Suter who's just mulling him on every single shift and probably should have like 15 penalties so far in this series but somehow it hasn't and so it's contextually like it's not that unreasonable but I think certainly for this wild team the way they were constructed the way

they played throughout the regular season what he meant to them offensively and how much he created throughout the year they just like needed him and this series has been close enough where if he was producing at his capability um maybe maybe Minnesota would have a better chance, but because he hasn't, it feels like the tide has turned here in Dallas's favor of three, two now with a chance to close him out. And so I feel like that has to be just because of regular season production versus what he's done so far in this series. It feels like that's kind of the biggest imbalance between the two. Yeah, I had Caprizov down as well. If he had more help and he was doing this, then I would just be like, yes, absolutely it's Caprizov.

But you feel from a little bit in terms of carrying the load there, it's like, Kim and Boldy and who else, right? I also had Andre Vasselowski down and Timo Meyer down. Two guys that obviously are phenomenal talents and produce at very high levels, but just haven't found it. And probably small sample size for both as far as, you know, why they're in this situation. You spent some time with Anthony on the podcast yesterday talking about Vasselowski,

so I don't know if we need to really hammer on that, but minus 5.38 goals. saved a bug expected. Not great. It's 56 save percentage. And it's been well documented now that the least of game planned against them and it's worked as far as point shots. Did you see John Cooper's comments today? I found that interesting. Very passive aggressive. He was asked. He was asked about it and then he's like, well, there's a reason Derek Lohens on that panel, right? He was an assistant coach for us that he wants to provide or he's being asked to provide information on the series and analysis. I just wish that he would get his facts right or something like that.

So very, very sassy response for John Cooper, who his gamesmanship in through the media with comments is, uh, is about as good as it gets in the league. Yeah, no one, no one compares to John Cooper and, and his press conferences. It's been like that for years and he seems to have amped it up this year with the lightning, not being quite what they used to be. Well, what do you think of Tim O'Meer so far? I mean, zero points of four games. He's taken 18 penalties or sorry, he has 18 penalty minutes. Right. Um, one of those is I think it must conduct at an end of a game though, right? Yeah. Yeah. Great underlying numbers. But obviously, you were beating the drum on him going to, to the devils before the trade deadline. And there's been obviously some great flashes there. But yeah. And look, like the series is tied to too. He could have monster games in game five and six and maybe if there's a game seven. Like I believe even Timomeyer. But yeah, it hasn't been there yet. Yeah, it hasn't. You have to stick with, I get just because of the hype. right and I'm partially responsible for that after beating that drum all season like for months

before the trade just asking and clamoring and demanding it at times and it happens and you're you just you know the expectations are through the roof and when you watch the devil's play and his own skill set like it's a match made in heaven right it should lead to amazing results the underlying numbers as you mentioned even throughout the regular season in the 20 show games you played were really really good just the puck wasn't going in as much the luck what the you know the puck luck or the finishing wasn't really there. I still believe because of his track record and skill that it'll come, especially in like the in games three and four,

I thought you saw a lot more of like creation from him and attacking with speed and the game opening up a little bit and how that favors them. Should know it also like not entirely to his credit because I think the refs might have blown the call on that. But game three, the series really changes, right? Once again, the Rangers are up, one nothing in that game about halfway through the game. Tim O'Meyer gets pushed into the net,

which by the way, absolutely cannot stand when defensemen push opposing forwards into their own goalie, just unacceptable. But he goes in there and probably doesn't really try very hard to get out of Schisturiken's way, let's say, right?

And then he's kind of on top of him. Shisterkin winds up taking a roughing penalty there because he's understandably irritated that a massive human being is just laying on him. And as it was pointed out on the ESPN broadcast, I think the official, that called it was kind of had a vantage point where he couldn't have really seen what initially happened. And so all he saw was Shisterkin just hitting Meyer repeatedly. And so they get that

call. Jack Hughes scores a power play goal, finally get them on the board. They eventually win that game, right, to one. And so it could have gone an entirely different direction where they just can't get anything by Shisterc and lose game three and that series is over. And now it really feels like it's back to square one. And so making his impact in a way there, I still I'm holding out hope that it's going to happen and goals will come. But yeah, that series has been fascinating because New Jersey's performance in the first two games was just so disparating. And then there hasn't been that many goals even since. So from an entertainment value perspective, it's tough to sell it as up there with the chaos of Kings, Oilers, or the pace of crack and avalanche.

But just from the rivalry perspective, the stylistic differences, that kind of push, pull of the X's and O's, that series is really, really interesting. Like, I, I'm going to go back, rewatch all those games and do a full deep dive on in the PDOC as I, I have high hopes for it, let's say, in these final three games as the series is tied at 2-2 now going back to New Jersey. Yeah, I can see going seven games and maybe even the overtime. It just has that sort of feel to it, right? Yeah.

Okay, let's, John, let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we'll rattle through. We did two questions so far, I think. So we're on pace to hit our allotted total. We'll try to get through as many of them as we can. After the break, you're listening to the Hockeypedio cast, as always streaming on the Sportsnet radio network. Discussing the biggest stories that matter to Vancouver sports fans,

Halford and Bruff in the morning. Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back here on the HockeyPedioCast with John Mattis taking listener questions. John, let's do one here from Jacob Underwood. Kind of a little thought exercise asks, If starting a franchise from scratch, you have Connor McDavid already. Your next choice is either Leon Drysidal or any goalie of your choice.

What's the pick? What's more valuable in that type of a roster-built scenario? So this, right when I read it, I'm like, obviously it's Drysidal. And then you start going through the names that you could potentially pick instead of him in the goalie ranks. It's like, wouldn't it be great to have Shosturkin, Sorokin, Jake Ottinger, you know, go up and down the list of... UC Soros. There you go. So I started thinking about it more,

and I still lean back to Drysettle just because I just feel like the way the league is trending, you can get by with a tandem and not a superstar net. And that's not to discredit those goalies who can certainly take you on a deep run and whatnot. But I just feel like having McDavid and Drysiddle is such a gigantic step up as far as, team building like just building around them and having that presumably assuming they sign extensions

in a hypothetical situation um that that runway of what 10 15 years whereas with goalies it's it's a shorter prime it's a little more unpredictable you know even a guy like jacob markstrom has a has a poor year this year whereas has has has dry saddle ever had a poor year i just feel like there's more dependability in the skater ranks um so i i circled back to Drysidal after even giving it some thought because it is tempting to go with one of those goalies, right? I mean, let's face it. Well, not to mention availability as well, right? Where theoretically, health permitting, dry saddle is going to give you 82 games, whereas a top goalie will give you somewhere between 50 to 60 at tops now. And so that's another thing

to consider certainly. I think also while there's pretty clearly a gap between a shister. and like a replacement level goalie from not only a repeatability perspective of like what our confidence should be in their performance individually, but also their ability to make their team better regardless of what's going on in front of them. I think there still is a gap between that and how a top skater, particularly like a top line center can just regardless of environment, make other people better and bring people along for the ride with them. them, right? Like, you're certainly going to have series or stretches either of the regular season where a goalie stands on their head and wins games for their team that they didn't deserve.

But ultimately, I think we know by now that defensive environment plays a big role on goalie stats and also the way you play defensively in front of your goalie is going to largely influence their performance. Like, we just talked about Andre Batsalevsky. You would have a couple weeks ago been like, yeah, he's the best goalie in the world. His playoff resume is through the roof other than that Columbus series largely unblemished, right? And then you get into this and you can make all these excuses about well, the Leafs are executing their game plan perfectly,

they're scoring on all these tips and screens where a goalie realistically doesn't have a chance, right? Well, that kind of speaks to what's happening in front of them and the importance of that, right? If Ian Cole is not going to take his man in front of you and box them out and allow you to get screened, you should still be able to stop it if you're as important as a Leon Dreisel who you would never really make that type of excuse. You might say, oh, his winger let him down because he didn't convert on that pass or his defenseman couldn't get him the puck on a breakout.

But he will overcome that environment much more often than a goalie will, I think. So I think that's an important part of this puzzle. Yeah. And also just the nature of a skater versus a goalie, I mean, goalies are reactive, right? They don't go out and skate down the ice and try to score a goal. Everything's coming to them. whereas dry-sidal can take over a game at will in this scenario. And also, I just think even though you can't play, you know,

players into the ground and, you know, say even the dry-sidal and McDavid, they play at most half of the game, I just think that they can tilt the ice so significantly. They are, you know, McDavid's best player in the world. Dry-Synolds arguably second, you know, let's say top five at worst. like that's just such a deadly combo that I find it hard to to convince myself that the goalie is the right choice there especially because we've seen you know darcy kemper just won a cup help me out here on recent cup winning starting goalies well vasseliski for a couple of years but he's the exception in pretty much every single way to to the position right i said this

from where he was drafted to how much he's paid to how much the lightning use them to his performance like we shouldn't really compare any other goalies to what's happened with Fasilevsky over the past five years um well and and and the the league in the sport in general is just getting so offensive right so like goalies are obviously going to try and combat that and I'm sure goals will come down at some point but the way the rule book is the way the game is coached now like I'd rather have that offense of course than that a goalie that that then tasking a goalie to stand on his head all the time when it's like this is not realistic they're they're they're fighting a losing battle at this point goalies

Yeah, yeah, we're what, two or three years, three years removed from Anton Houdobin playing every single minute for a team that made the Stanley Cup final in the bubble as well, right? There's a lot of examples of that whereas you can certainly, if you're Vegas, you can pluck Chandler Stevenson out of anonymity and get a lot out of him. Or if you're the wild, right Hartman can be your first setter and you have the wing talent around him to make it work. But it's just, I feel like from a team building model, especially in this scenario, you're already starting. with McDavid. Yeah. I see that strengthening a strength where having Dysettle and then both having the option to go nuclear at 515 and play them together, but also how the combination of

the two of them can give you a historically dominant power play as well is an important factor of this, right? Maybe if you were starting with just one of those guys and then you couldn't have the other and then you had to consider other things, the calculus might be a little different. But in this case, I feel like it's sort of a no-brainer in that way to go that. route. So it's interesting, though. I'm certainly willing to listen to an argument for all of it. I just feel like a top forward in particular can impact the game from a scoring perspective in so many different ways. Dan here asks, who would you say as a good player

comparable to Matthew Nyes? Now, you've, as you said, you've been following that series closely. You've gotten to watch him a little bit. You said he had a few notes on him. He's only played, what, six NHL games so far between the regular season and playoffs, so very limited sample. But I'm kind of curious for your take on sort of what you're seeing from his game and how that projects. Yeah, I'll give a couple of comparables after I just run through a couple of my notes. I mean, he seems super smart. I think the hockey IQ hockey sense is right there. I don't see any issues in his defensive game.

He's got some playmaking ability. There's been multiple net drives that he's made this postseason, sort of out muscling some guys to the front of the net. On the other hand, you can tell he's new to the team. team. You know, there's, there's been some shaky moments as far as positioning. He's obviously hardwired to play in the system that he came from in college. Like, he's jumping on a moving train here. So, like, you give him a pass for that, but that's certainly something I've noticed where he's not entirely on the same page as everyone else. And again, that's fine. You can tell, I mean, Sheldon Keith trusts this guy. Like, it's nobody's business. He's already fourth and five

on five time on ice per game among forwards, which is like, that's significant with the talent that they have. For game five, he's moving up to the top six. They did that for the end of game four and basically ensured that at least for the time being Michael Bunting will not get his spot back, right? Yeah, the reports out of Toronto media is that Bunting's not drawing back in and Nise is in the top six. I mean, that's a huge compliment.

He was also on for both overtime goals. So that says something. And as a bit of a side note, I found that Ryan O'Reilly has just been the perfect landing spot for him. And I realize that now he's moving up the lineup. But it was just such a perfect centerman for him to latch onto to start his career, both on the ice. And this is totally anecdotal.

But it seems like on the bench, there's a lot of communication there. And just assurances that, like, hey, I'm a widely vet. I got everything under control, which is like, that's O'Reilly to a team. He's a bit of a Bergeron light in that way where he's just got kind of tunnel vision for how to play the game a certain way and doesn't really stray from it. So those are my notes. And I'd say the comparables, and this is hard because he's so new. But Riley Smith came to mind. Pavel Bouchnavich, Arturi Lekinen, all lefties, all have a two-way game, all have a little edge to them and scoring touch.

because I see I see Nyes too playing PK minutes down the road too He's got some versatility to him I'd say his biggest attribute right now from what I've seen This is supremely encouraging about what his NHL career is going to look like Is his puck protection is already off the charts right And it's like it's a very advanced level of it too Where he he knows how to he's like clearly going to get stronger As he gets into his mid-20s right

But he already knows how to use his frame and then he utilizes really sophisticated cutbacks to keep defenders off balance as he's sort of buying time and space and waiting for someone to make themselves available. And that's a skill for a winger that is absolutely vital in today's game. And you're already seeing that a handful of games into his NHO career, particularly against the lightning team in the playoffs that would otherwise for a player who's not prepared for that be a nightmare matchup. And so that is really encouraging.

I think anything that comes from a goal scoring perspective, he scored a bunch of goals in the NCAA now that came with Logan Cooley, setting the puck on a silver platter for him against NCAA goal tending. So this is a bit different here, but there's no reason to believe that with his skill set and his shot, that he won't be able to at least be a valuable contributor there. And when you compare that with the possession qualities, I just mentioned, that makes for one heck of a winger.

So, yeah, I'm pretty excited about what I see from him so far. Any comparables come to mind for you? I don't know. Yeah. I mean, the names you mentioned there are all fine. I'm cool with it. I don't know.

Every player is unique. It's always tough. I feel like generally a lot of the, like I like that it was a diverse range of players you mentioned there. Generally, like the comps are very lazy. It's like just because someone looks exactly the same or the same nationality or something.

It's generally where you go with that. In this case, yeah, it's like I think he's going to be a top six possession winger, which is a very useful player to have. especially while he's on his ELC here. So, um,

okay, uh, at Postum notes asks, with increased focus on scouting individual opponents, what's the balance team should, should strike between neutralizing their opponent's strengths, first maximizing their own strengths, assuming it's not as,

uh, convenient as your strengths being the other team's weakness. So, um, I think this is, we already talked about the, um, the Leaf's game planning of Vasilevsky here.

That's kind of what comes to mind. where especially it's divergent from their own strength, which is not taking point shots. And so they've totally changed their offensive approach in that way to try and focus in on and punish a weakness of the opposition and it's worked for them so far. I think if the puck wasn't bouncing in for them, some of these tips weren't working, they potentially lose games three and four. Maybe the way this is framed would be different, right? We'd be like, huh, the Leafs are taking a lot of point shots all of a sudden and their scoring is

dry it up. They can't get to the inside anymore. What's the deal here? And so a lot of analysis is very hindsight results based, certainly. And the reason why this is coming up is because Vaselowski has given up a lot of goals. But undoubtedly, like, this is a reason why he's struggling. It's not just him choking or sucking all of a sudden. Like, it's clear that this is part of it. So I don't know, what are your takes here in terms of like preparing for an opponent in a series and trying to sort of stick with what make you effective and got you there in the first place, but also acknowledging that a playoff series is a chess match. And generally,

the opponent is going to want to try to take that away. And it's up to you to sort of work around that. Yeah, I guess it depends on your opponent, how dominant you are. Like, for some reason, I think about the Boston Florida series.

And I go, Boston just needs to think about themselves. Like, you'll be fine with these Panthers players. And then, but then you flip over to Leafs Lake. as you mentioned and not only have they had months to prepare for the lightning but Sheldon keef the the coach for Toronto is known for I don't know if overcoaching is the right

way to put it but like everyone loves for lines to go in the blender and he seems to really just take that to the extreme sometimes and there's obviously a time in place but um there seems to be a lot of adjusting that that he does and maybe to as you said like it's so hard because a lot this is in hindsight, but maybe to his detriment sometimes, especially in the past and previous series, but I don't know. Like, you know, if you were putting a percentage on it, I would say, like, focus on yourself, your team, your strengths, 70% and 30% focus on the opponent as a general rule. Because I think that, say if you think of the New Jersey Devils, like, they're a rush team who also defends well off the rush

with those big lanky defensemen. Like that seems like a recipe for success and I realize that playoff hockey is different, et cetera. But to do one thing for 82 games and then flip a switch and do something for the start of the playoffs just seems counterproductive in a lot of ways. So that's its team where I look and I go,

like, do your thing, live and die by your style because it's so extreme in a lot of ways. So that's not a great way to answer because I feel like I, you know, jumped around a lot there. But it's really dependent on the team and your strengths, your weaknesses, and how different you are than the other team. If you're going head to head and you have very similar styles, then maybe it becomes more of a chess match.

Yeah. And it's also, you know, as you go throughout a long playoff run, there's certainly you're going to bump into a diversity of opponents, right? So it's like your different things are going to be tested and there's going to be different matchups to exploit. But if you're serious about being a contender and winning a Stanley Cup, especially at the start of the postseason, one game in, you're like suddenly frantically scrambling and changing everything up

and trying to be someone you're not or haven't been all season, that's worrisome to me because it feels like you're not very serious about believing that your strength is good enough to take you all the way, right? And at the end of the day, you're going to need different contributors. You're going to need to win certain games through different forms. But teams win Stanley Cups or go on long runs because the thing they do well, they do better than everyone else. And so if you go away from that and all of a sudden, you start stretching yourself too thin

and trying to experiment with stuff that you never really executed throughout the regular season, I think you can like very, it can really just go off the rails very quickly, right? And so it's encouraging for the for the devils that after those first two games, they did sort of bounce back. Game three wasn't fully there. But game four, it certainly opened up and they looked much more like the regular season team. And that's the way they need to play. Like I get that you might just need to try to get through this Rangers series and then potentially you get into a round two matchup where it's a bit more open. And then you can go back to playing this way and you certainly want to just focus on the opponent right in front of you.

But for a young group like that, like yeah, you just got to you got to play your game. You can't allow someone else to dictate the terms. I feel like that's when you can really put yourself into trouble. So, all right, one more here. We're sign out. Cam asks, looking at teams crushing on the power play this postseason, like the Oilers and Stars, would a finals run or championship be diminished or seen as quote unquote unearned if a team's five-on-five play doesn't pick up and they're carried by their power play as a cup winner ever truly been carried by a power play with four or five-on-five?

play. So this is an interesting one because obviously there's a lot of jokes about the Oilers being power play merchants throughout the regular season and how much their productions come from that and all that. I just find that so silly and especially not applicable here because the Oilers are technically only up 11 to 10 at 515 in this series. They've been the significantly better 5-15 team against the Kings through these first five games. And I'm going to do a podcast with Daniel Ledra Bowman tomorrow. We're going to deep dive that series and get into a much more. I just wanted to point that out. But I think the Oilers are at the center of this conversation and have been all year.

The stars are getting outscored so far by the wild, even though they're up in this series at 515. It's just that their power play is scoring pretty much every time they get an opportunity. But I'm kind of curious for your take on this. And it's sort of the framing of how being very reliant on your power play gets sort of like treated as not being equal to a team that dominates at even strength because of whatever idea that it's referee influenced or it's just not as hard to do as creating offense sustainably at 5-15.

Well, my short answer is that a win is a win, right? It doesn't matter how you win the cup. Like, you scratch and claw and you make it there however possible. And for the Oilers, the reason why they're in the position that they're in from the regular season is in large part to their power play as well. It's just how they're constructed. It's just the all-world talent that they have. And I get the question from a sense that, like, in the regular season, we're all obsessed with five-on-five numbers, five-on-five play.

Like, it's just myself included. Like, I obviously care about the power play and what teams do and what players do, but it's just more of a reflection of true talent when you see what they do at five-on-five, right? But I think at a team level, once you get to the playoffs, all bets are off, and it's just how, How do you get to that cup? And again, I get where the question is coming because there is that influence of the referees, right, of the officiating, where you could, you know, go through every single call that was against the Kings this series and go like, did the Oilers really deserve to win because X, Y, and Z happened? But I don't know. I feel like that that's maybe. I think in general, the Kings have gotten a bit of a favorable whistle in this series, particularly in the first two games.

Yeah, I meant just in general. Right, right. Yeah, for sure. Like trying to diminish a cup based on calls. So I get where the question's coming from and it makes some sense if we're talking about it in the regular season. Like what's more impressive, the team that's dining out on their power play or the team that's dominant at five on five.

But if you win the cup, you know, doing it in some way, shape, or form, it doesn't matter if it's power play or five on five driven. And the reason we care about that is because a large, largest percentage of the game is played at 5-on-5. Over an 82-game season, it's really tough to cover for those flaws unless you just have unbelievable, both efficiency in terms of skill players,

converting shots into goals, and your goal-tending itself. Like generally, having the puck more often, creating chances, dominating other teams in the most commonly played state of game, is going to lead to the results, right? That's why we care about it. When you get to the post-season,

all that matters is winning four out of, of seven in all of these little segments. And so how you get there, as you said, doesn't really matter. And so I should also note, like, part of this question was about the success so far on the power plays, the league average through this first 10 days or whatever of the playoffs. Teams are scoring 10 goals an hour on the power play to put that into perspective. The Oilers were the only team that did that this regular season. Wow.

And teams are shooting 19% on the power play. The Oilers were the only team that did that this season. So pretty much the league. average and the oilers success by the way is bringing a lot of this up as well because there are numbers so far have been just comical um but league wide league wide efficiency on the power play right now is oilers level from this regular season like everyone is performing at a historically elite rate so it's small sample but it is an interesting thing to note uh as we go along in this post season right it's crazy and i don't believe really into momentum game to game but i think there's

there's something to momentum within the games. And if you, you know, give the opposing team a five minute power play and they kill you twice, like that's just a, that's a death, a death nail, a last nail in the coffin for that game.

So I don't know, the power play is still very relevant. It's still well-earned, you know, points and you got to capitalize. Like that's what every playoff series, every playoff game, every playoff shift is about.

So the small sample size really amplifies. Yeah, I would say never apologize for scoring on the power boy. There's no need to do that. Okay, John, this was a blast. I'll let you plug some stuff on the way out here. Sure. So I'm at MATISED, J-O-H-N on Twitter, Mattis John. You know, if you want to find my stuff,

probably best to just go on the score app and type my name into the search. And writing about the playoffs nonstop until the cup is handed out. and some draft coverage around along the way. And that's about it. I mean, it's kind of crazy, right, where we are in the season, late April. It feels like the end of the season kind of flew by. Yeah.

Well, this is a blast, man. Thanks for coming on. This is really fun. We'll have you back on as postseason goes long, certainly. My only plug is to go smash that five-star button on the rating and review where we listen to the show. And we'll be back tomorrow with another episode of the HockeyPedio cast, as always streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.