The Hockey PDOcast - Predators Struggles, Four Nations Glow Ups, and Bedard in Year 2

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by John Matisz to break down the reasons for Nashville's continued struggles, potential changes to the NHL regular season schedule, players that have made a case to be included in the upcoming Four Nations tournament with their play, and Connor Bedard's production in Year 2.  If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Demetri Philipovich and joining me as my good buddy John Mattis. John, what's going on, man? Not a whole lot, Dimitri. Just hanging out. I was in the PDOCast Discord recently and they took a look at the number of people in there. And you're approaching 1,000 folks in there.

So my plug off the top, a very unnecessary plug since you didn't ask for one. Let's get in there because we're getting close to a thousand. Look at you endearing yourself. Yeah, as you said, you've been in there for a while. I think you can definitely vouch for this. I think you just did. It's, if you're looking for a safe space right now to just hang out with people every night while you're watching games and just talk about hockey,

I think there's truly no better place right now. I know I'm biased, but I've been loving it in there, and I think it's only getting better. We're coming up on that thousand person milestone as well, and joined all the other nerds, just have high-level, conversations with us every night. And I think in general, it's the best way moving forward to just keep up with the show, obviously. We take mailbag questions. We're going to do so later on today as well, so you can have your boys heard and kind of be interactive as well, but just in general,

in terms of when new shows are coming out and kind of what's going on and what we're talking about, I think it's the best resource. So you and I were, well, by the way, this is your first appearance since the season opener, right, overseas when the Devils and the Sabres played that back to back. and I can't believe it's been about a month now. It really flew by. I guess the start of the season always is a whirlwind, but we have a lot to catch up on. And you and I were kind of bouncing around ideas

for what we wanted to get into today. And you suggested that off the top, we take a closer look at what's going on with the Nashville Predators, because I think a lot of people have been quite surprised and it's been jarring by their start to the season after all of the offseason moves and money they spend, names they brought in,

and just in general, kind of the expectation that they would only build off of, the success they had last year, but they've regressed in a major way. And so let's do it. You're the guest. It wouldn't have necessarily been my first choice because I feel like starting off the show with such a bleak topic kind of bums people out. But I promise that as the show goes on, we've got some fun, kind of more hopeful topic points that we're going to get into. So let's start chatting about this Godfors season that we're watching. You and I both watch them lose the Washington Capitals on Wednesday night. It was a very light night.

in the hockey world and so it allowed us to kind of focus on that, especially the first game that puck dropped on that night. They dropped to 4-8-1 on the season. They're down to a tie for last place with the Flyers now. They have nine points, John. The sharks have 10. The San Jose sharks here at 24, 25 have more points and then they've led for only 82 minutes so far this season in those 13 games, which is really hard to do. Here's my first thought on that. It was wasn't really a fair fight in that game when you just consider that it was a matchup of teams with arguably the most polar opposite vibes possible, right? You've got this Caps team that's been so fun, so high scoring, such a neat story to start the year. And then you've got this miserable

Panthers team that is underperforming and just looks like a mess and doesn't, don't look like they're having fun. I feel like Andrew Burnett every time the camera pans to him. Last night in the first period, he had a moment where like he was trying to bury both of his fingers into his eye. ball just so that he couldn't watch anymore what was happening. He looks like he's aged about 20 years in this first month of the season. And the Capitals, you know, to their credit, were also sporting these just beautiful throwback, screaming Eagles getups. And they look sensational. They're so pretty. And it matched the actual play on the ice from them this season as well. I thought it was a very fitting connection. What were your takes from that game? What did you see from the Predators? Where do you

want to kind of like broach this topic and get into what's kind of ailing them so far this season. Yeah, I mean, I guess we might as well start with the offense because it's been, I guess, the one area where you thought that they wouldn't struggle or at least based on the contracts they sign in the summer, it wouldn't be a major issue, but it is. I find it's very vanilla. I don't know about you, Dimitri, but I'm not seeing many players who are catalysts, like who are playmakers or just, you know, guys bringing a playwrights. pocket into the zone, like they have, you know, the guys they signed in the offseason, March or so, Stamco's, these are triggerment. They're not, they're not guys who are going to set up

other players very often. You know, Ryan O'Reilly, fantastic player, Gus Nyquist, good player. They don't really count, you know, O'Reilly may be in his prime and when he had better feet, but at this point, not quite a catalyst. And then you got evangelise and Thomasino, two young players who have that potential and are showing flashes, but I find they're not quite there yet as far as a, you know, a top level creator. And then you've got Yossi and Forsberg. I mean, they can only do so much. Those are the two guys who normally are sort of the engine behind this Nashville team. But just the way that the roster is turned over, it feels like Yosie, you know, has to pay a little more attention to the defensive zone because the blue line isn't quite what it

used to be. And then Foresberg is such a target of the other team's defense that it's hard for him to do it all by himself. So that's where I start is the lack of guys who can, and it's not really like driving play. It's more like being creative, offering different looks or throwing different looks at the opposition and just setting up these guys who they acquired in the offseason to shoot the puck from prime scoring areas. Like, this is a major problem right now. Yeah, so far as on the season, they're averaging 1.4 goals per 60 at 5-on-5, only the Anaheim ducks are more inefficient offensively, and that's a team as we've talked about this season that isn't really seemingly trying to score at all or generate anything offensively, so I think that's a highly alarming neighborhood for them to be in.

Stamco's finally in that game against the Capitol scored his first five-on-five goal on the year, was off of like a little tip play in front of the net, so it wasn't even a shot. Marsha, so who I do, think has actually been more dangerous in totality is up to 172 5-on-5 minutes now in the year without being on the ice for a single Predator's goal, which seems impossible. They're shooting 4.6% as a team, so we should note that. Like, I think they're certainly, I think they've been kind of on the on the, on the poor end of the shooting luck. You look even further, NHL.com doesn't keep track of this for teams, I believe. You kind of have to just like eyeball it individually, but I count it 23 combined either posts or crossbars that their players have hit, which feels like in 13

games must lead the league. So I think, you know, if you replay these 13 games, I'm sure they're due for a few more goals, but I'm with you in terms of that like offensive sort of malaise or lack of efficiency or however you want to describe it. You watch that game previously against the Kings that they played and you and I were talking about this. They scored, or they had generated 16 shots on goal the entire game. Natural Stature cut them down for one point. two expected goals generated in total. And that was a game where they were trailing the entire third period and they were able to muster nothing and kind of look lifeless just generally as a team.

Spoor logic numbers have them at 25th in inner slot shots. And the broadcast last night ran this graphic that showed that the Predators only have six goals scored this season from within 10 feet of the net. So I think that kind of illustrates that like it's so perimeter based. They're not really getting to the inside. and I think what made them unique last year, and we discussed this a bunch throughout the year, I think you and I in particular had conversations about this. They found this special sort of like sauce or formula in terms of effort-based metrics generally, right?

And they're ones that sport logic tracks with like four check chances, rebounds, cycle plays, kind of like they weren't necessarily other than when Forsberg was out there, they weren't really high flying or sort of beating you off the rush as much. It was more so they were just wearing teams down and they were really controlling play, especially. during that winning streak and then carrying it over into the second half of the season. And I guess the issue for me is they saw that and they did that last year. And then they kind of went in the opposite direction in the sense that they spent a bunch of money on those triggermen that you mentioned. And I think they got much slower as a team. And so a lot of what made them special last year with that effort and that motor and that competitiveness kind of dissipated here where now they're just slower.

and it feels like they're just unable to really replicate that. So they're kind of caught in the middle where I don't think they really know what kind of team they are or what they want to be. And that makes sense whenever you bring in this many new faces and big names, there's going to be sort of this jelling period, right, where it's like a pretty common concept. I think everyone can appreciate that, that it's going to take some time for them to figure that out.

But unfortunately, they have nothing to fall back on in the meantime, right? And so, like, I just think they're kind of a no man's land. And that's pretty alarming because I guess, they could start scoring a few more goals if they just get a bit more shooting luck, but for the most part, if they keep playing this way, I don't really see where the offense is going to come from. Yeah, it's one of those things where part of it can be chalked up to this adjustment period. You have all these new players, even if you think of the power play, which was a big issue in the first five or so games, I mean, it's almost too much to ask for a

power play to add Marchesau and Stamcoast and just automatically click. All the best power plays. And I think you were talking about this recently on a podcast episode. Like, they've been together for years. The Tampa Power Play, obviously now they don't know Stampos, but Toronto's power play when it's firing. Like, these are sort of like well-in-french power plays. It's very hard to just hit the ground running just because you have good players. So I think that's part of it too.

And just, you know, each player, like, think about Stambos from an individual perspective, personal perspective. He spent his entire career in Tampa and now he's in Nashville. You know, we're not going to cry over that transition. given how much money is getting paid, but there's a real human impact in terms of like his family getting settled, him getting settled, new team,

new teammates, new coach. It's not going to automatically be great off the hop. And I mean, I've found that like even watching last night's game, Stamco's just, it was a good like embodiment of what's going on with this team in the adjustment period where there was one sequence where he was in the span of like 10 seconds.

I saw him make a drop pass to absolutely no one. Puck goes the other way. There's a turnover. It comes back the other way. Nashville's pressing. Sampost gets the puck again near the blue line. He fires the puck to the middle of the ice, thinking a predator is going there.

And again, the puck is turned over. So neither of them led to goals, but it was just sort of like, okay, there's too much of new player not on the same page as the rest of the roster going on here. And some of that will be figured out over time, but it's just, it's maybe lagged on a little long here. You know, 4, 8, 1, that's not an impossible thing to come back from,

but it's not a small sample, you know, it's not five games. So they got to turn around relatively quickly here in order to just get back in that central division, race as far as getting one of those top three seeds, and not falling into that wild guard. Yeah, the offensive generation is a problem, but I think where a lot of these issues are actually manifesting themselves most is defensively, and you kind of alluded to that a little bit there with that sequence you highlighted,

they're down all the way to 30th in expected goals against as well, and I thought UC Soros was tremendous in that game. The Capitals came out of it. Yeah, he said, sorry to interrupt, but he's been fine. Like, anyone who is thinking that Theros is the problem here, it's, it's just not the case. Well, the Capitals had 18 shots on goal on that first spirit alone, and I remember a time last year where that was a total where they would be struggling to get to that by the end. of the entire game and they just kind of effortlessly were able to just barrage them with shots like that and that's been happening for a while now. I think where you see that sort of my foot speed concerns and sort of lack of connectivity isn't a lot of those transition sequences where there's a

miscommunication or whatever and then there's struggling to sort of flip the ice back in the opposite direction and you could see that like take the first shift of the second period. They give up a point blank chance off the rush to the Capitol seven seconds into the frame. And it's right off the draw. It's kind of a set play. There's just a miscommunication. A couple guys get caught up ice right away, going the wrong way. And instantly, like, it's a great A. I think it was a three on two or two on one that wound up like a point blank shot and Sorrow saved it. But that's inexcusable, like that quickly into a period to have that sort of a breakdown. It's very Pittsburgh Penguins-esque. I think one of my frustrations with this team right now, and it's lingering from last

year, it was masked a little bit by the fact that there were so many other fun stories and they were winning along the way is Andrew Brunette's sort of blind spot, I think, for a few players in particular on this roster. And now, listen, I don't think it's unique to him. I still think he's a good coach. We know that NHL bench bosses sort of defer to veterans and give them different treatment than young players. But I'm glad you brought up a guy like Evangelista, for example. I know he hasn't scored a lot. But in watching these games this season, it's a continuation from last postseason. I'd argue he's one of like two players on this team right now that can consistently create at 5-1-5, just in terms of looking dangerous and like manufacturing opportunities.

It's Philip Forsberg and him pretty much right now. You're getting a little Nyquist there in O'Reilly, but for the most part, especially creating for others. He seems like he's got a bit of juice there. And Andrew Burnett was ready to healthy scratch him heading into that game before Tommy Novak wound up being hurt late in the previous game and they scratched him instead, we've seen like he just has, for whatever reason, a deprooted disdain for Phil Tomasino and just refuses to play him and trust him. And I think that's incredibly frustrating, especially for a team that's struggling and hasn't been scoring.

This seems like a prime opportunity to do so. He's a great by-low candidate for anyone in the league if they're watching these games. But while it's all happening, it feels like those guys kind of generally get the brunt of the punishment and getting minutes taken and bump down the lineup and they're being healthy scratched. And then you've got guys like McCarran, Cole Smith, Cole and Sizzins who are just sort of getting buried. And he, like many other coaches, I think right now, has a blind spot for those guys. He just likes them, trust them, is going to keep using them regardless of what the eye test and the numbers say. And I think that's a bit of a problem here as well. It's easier

to justify when you're winning anyways and you're like, all right, these are kind of glue guys. And we, you know, they're reliable. But when things are going the direction they have so far this season. I think it becomes tougher and tougher to reconcile. Yeah, and I do wonder what happens here because you and I were messaging back and forth about Barry Trots's comments recently. I guess this week a couple days ago, where he went on the radio in Nashville and dropped the rebuild word, even though he spent over $100 million in the summer upgrading the roster. And, you know, he sort of walked it back a little bit in an interview with the Tennessee

and the local newspaper there, but nevertheless, Trots is looking at the roster and wondering what he can do, how he can move the chess pieces around. And I just felt the way that he approached that, that, you know, communicating his frustration through the media was very, you know, head coach-like, which makes sense as a guy who spent the long time as a head coach, where he tries to sort of coach the guy,

up or down through the media, but he's actually a GM now. So his quote, you know, goes, goes a long way when he's talking about rebuilds and trades and whatnot. So I found that fascinating from the perspective of Trots is clearly thinking about doing something yours, at least some tinkering. But he's sort of, you know, you're trying to use the media as a tool to motivate in some respects, too. Yeah, the quote I believe was if we don't get it going, I'm going to, then I'm going to start our rebuild plan and that obviously that quote in particular sort of caught like wildfire other than sort of misspeaking or maybe like phrasing it poorly. I'm with you. I think a lot of that was just having coaching brain. Something that we joke about here is like once you've got that,

even when I have Jack Ha'an on, he just reuse everything through that prism. And I think like you're not only your approach, but the way you sort of view the game and like all the tactics and everything, I think are framed very directly through that and it's tough to shake even as a GM now in his role. I think it's a motivation tactic, certainly, and it doesn't hurt. I don't think anyone should necessarily, despite their contract status, be comfortable when you're playing the way the predators have so far. But I'm with you, in terms of actual functional purpose here,

they committed nearly 30 million long term on a per season basis to Stamco's Marshalls-Oshay and Soros in pretty much the last calendar a year or so since two summers ago. and I know I think the bigger point of this year and the most interesting sort of way to spin this for me is they have this a HL team in Milwaukee

that had an incredibly productive year last year guided largely by young players who they had drafted high in the NHL draft in the past couple of seasons and built up this prospect pool along the way and I wonder if this continues for any stretch of time whether there's

going to be an opportunity here for them or an incentive to sort of get more of those guys a look and get them into the lineup and try to spice things up. I know I just said that Andrew Brunette has sort of struggled with that here in Nashville in terms of trusting those guys and utilizing them properly. But you even look at that the most recent couple of games and I think like a guy like Zach LaRue for example, not necessarily scoring, but I think has a distinct amount of juice to his game in terms of like that those effort battles that we just described where like he's forechecking, he's helping cycle the pocket extend possessions, keep the pocket lease in the right side of the ice, and he's one of those players that was on

that Milwaukee team last year, and they've used him and I think he's helped a lot. So if there's more of that to come, I think that makes a lot of sense for them. I guess the issue though, when you spend as much as they did in free agency and commit to veterans is you block a lot of those spots, right? Because if you're going to defer to those veterans and stamp goes, no matter how poorly he's playing a 515, is going to be playing in a top six score. role in the top power play unit, same with Marsha. So obviously O'Reilly, Forsberg, where are you going to play those guys? And then all of a sudden it's like, all right, well, we're going to call up any prospect you can think of that they have. But if they're playing with Michael McCarran on the

fourth route line, how productive are they going to be? Are they going to be put in a position to succeed? And that's one of my concerns there and whether it's actually viable for them to do so. But I would be much more intrigued if they went that route. And if you want to describe that as a rebuild. Sure, I guess. But I think it's almost, it's almost a lifeline to try and sort of just infuse a little bit of energy into this season that's clearly been lacking so far. Yeah. And it is funny, though, because, you know, if trust does call up some guys from the H.L, like, that will be the moment when Andrew Brunette will have to see control a little bit. I mean, it's his, it's his boss saying, like, things are getting a little desperate here.

So maybe that's when the Tomasinos of the world gets some more ice time, where these HLers get higher spots in the lineup because at some point it becomes one of those desperate times call for desperate measures. So not that I'm hoping that Nashville fans suffer more than all of this happens, but it would be interesting to see how it all unfolds. I would certainly be much more intrigued and hopeful. I do think we just need to entirely change the way we're talking about Stamco's. I feel like we've done a good job of that on the PDO cast here for a while now, but just because of the name brand and sort of recognition of what he's been in his career, everyone still talks about him as being this sort of like nuclear offensive weapon. And the shot on

the power play is still great and is still a threat. But we're going on a long stretch of games here, John, where he's just not really posing any sort of threat in 5-1-5 and definitely isn't a driver by any means. I think if you put him in a position where he can use that shot at 5-15, you could probably manufacture a few goals. But this isn't someone you can expect at this point, I think, to put him in a spa where it's like he's going to elevate others. And I think what Kucharov did last year masked a lot of that and so did the power play production. And so no one really talked about him that way. And I think it's like a sign of respect to him and I get all of that. But he's just at a different point of his career right now.

I think we've seen enough to regardless of the adjustment period, I don't think all of a sudden with 10 more games under his belt and feeling more comfortable and in your surrounding, you're going to expect him to be driving a second line offensively. So I do think like there's a reckoning there that they probably should have seen. coming or been more cognizant of that I think eventually they're just going to be forced to accept or just keep losing games I guess. Totally agree and it does emphasize that the biggest need for this team is second line center because the deal of Samco's on the wing with a good strong center and another useful winger in that top six. I think he's he's still spying at 5.5 but he can't be the guy, the goat to guy in the top six anymore. just like you said, too much evidence.

Oh, they're looking for a young play driving second line center, them and about 20 other teams in this league. So good luck finding that, especially in season. I think Barry Trott's actually even said as much in one of those because he does those weekly radio spots locally. I think he actually had that quote recently as well. And it just is what it is to kind of a reality of the situation in the NHL right now. You got any other notes on the predators here or do you want to go to break?

No, I'm good. Okay, let's take our break here. Then we come back. We're going to switch gears. We're going to take a couple mailbag questions. We're going to lift the spirits of the show. We're going to have some fun and be much more optimistic after drudging through that Predator's conversation. So looking forward to that.

Let's take our break here. You're listening to the Hockey-Docast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right. We're back here on the HockeyPEDO cast, joined by John Mattis. John. Let's get into some mailbag questions from that aforementioned PDO cast Discord. word. And we're going to have some fun with this. We're going to start off with a question from JR Jersey asks, any changes you'd want to see to the NHL schedule? More home and homes,

kind of like a baseball series in a sense, fewer games, a play in tournament, which changes would make for a better on ice product and create better storylines? You know what? I think we need to make, I'm going to petition to make J.R. Jersey, the commissioner of the league, because I like all of those. I think all of those would. accomplish exactly what the question stipulates. What do you think about those and do you have any other sort of suggestions or sort of wrinkles that you'd like to see over the course of a typical NHL season to just enhance the product, I guess, make it more viewer friendly for people to really like enjoy every step of the ride along the way. Yeah, with the baseball style idea, during the

COVID season, they did have teams go to road cities and play there for multiple games. And I remember I want to see it was Mark Schifley, but one of the players speaking up and saying, like, we should be doing this during normal times. One, it cuts down on travel and two, I think from a viewing perspective, I mean, it can create a little buzz, a little storyline creation. I like that. So say Winnipeg, they play Anaheim twice, let's just say, I'm just throwing this out there, twice in one year, Inham and Anaheim, you go there for one trip, you bang out both, and I think you get a little more drama. I like that because that's something that I think the NHL thought about incorporating after the COVID season, but then didn't. I think, I think, you know, having any sort of midseason excitement, like by always, I mean, every year would be beneficial. I mean, obviously, we have the Four Nations face off this year. We will have the Olympics next year, but they got to keep that going.

I don't think the All-Star weekend counts. I, you know, honestly, I would be fine if they just cut it all completely and had any sort of, you know, even if it's gimmicky, but any sort of competitive tournament during that period. It might not be four nations every year, it might be a different spin on things, but something that incorporates the different countries. So that's one thing. I mean, it's a bit of an old hockey play at this point, but cutting down the preseason would be fantastic. Although I'll say, I don't want them to cut it down just to add two more regular season games. I get the business reason to do that.

You know, more gay revenue. I understand like, you know, the rationale there. But like 82 is plenty. 84 is too many. Let's tamper that down a little bit. So those are the things that come to mind. Just a few things. Yeah, obviously.

I mean, the fewer games is the biggest pipe of all because they're never going to give back that additional money. If anything, they're going to scale it up and add more games, as you said. You know, I don't know if you saw this note, but obviously a unique circumstance because his body's been through a lot and he's had a bunch of serious injuries along the way. And it's kind of a miracle that he's been as productive as he has the past couple of years. But I saw a note about how like Tyler say again, for example, he's essentially going to be managed the entire rest of the season in terms of not playing back to backs and sort of being selective with the way they're using them. And, you know, he's a veteran with a lot of injuries. But that also makes a lot of sense, especially for a good deep team with playoff aspirations. And so. I just think you've seen it certainly happen in the NBA much more so than it has so far in NHL, but just in terms of like managing workloads and getting more out of players, 82 is already way too many, especially if you want full max effort every step of the way. I do like the, whether it's the series in one town or even like a home and home if the travel isn't too bad in terms of like

if you're even in an east-west situation and you obviously play once in each respective rink. if you just have those games in close succession, especially at the start of the year, I find that generally the carryover in terms of like whatever animosity or whatever happened in the first game is much more likely to create an interesting scenario in the next game that follows

as opposed to like when you play in October and then you don't see the team again until late March, it's almost completely defeats the purpose. In that sense, I do, and we're going to talk where I have a Four Nations question here that we're going to get into next as a sort of natural segue, but I just think, yeah, breaking up the monotony of the regular season with some sort of an event is also incredibly appealing. We saw the in season tournament in the NBA,

right? And sort of, I liked in particular and appreciated, we'll see as it carries over in future seasons, but at least like as a one-off for the first year in the novelty of it, sort of the gimmick of not only, you know, they're having fun sort of with the courts in terms of like just changing the visuals and the aesthetics of how it looks. And it was like, all right, this is an entirely different sort of spectacle and it's going to give it a special feel. And so it's going to look different. So there was that.

And I thought, just as of you were tuning in, it made it feel new and unique and fun as opposed to just tuning into a regular average, regular season game. And then also in that, and I know that the players in the NBA expressed some frustration because and people aren't going to believe this to just follow hockey. It's not unique to only that HL, but the idea of like, you got to respect the game and play the right way. I know that the players were sort of frustrated with the fact that point differential mattered so much in that tournament in terms of like who advanced and who didn't because we saw in those games even in blowouts, teams sort of like trying to run up the score and actively pursue scoring as much as they could to the final buzzer just so that they could increase their point differential for the tournament just in case it mattered. And it did wind up mattering in some circumstances. I think the idea of that in a hockey regular season setting is also fun as well

because we use goal differential as sort of a tool for evaluating how good teams are along the way, but for the most part it never really winds up actually functionally mattering in terms of like seating or anything like that. In this case, in a short sample of few games, all of a sudden one of our frustrations when games are out of hand late or even if it's like two cross-conference teams, they sort of had this gentleman's agreement to get into overtime so that they can each get a point and help their causes, and then someone tries to win it in OT and get that second point. In this case, I think just enhancing the product in terms of everyone trying to the final buzzer, it would impact games scripts quite a bit like that, and it would keep teams honest in terms of actually having a go full blast till the end. And so I think that would be a little bit of a fun wrinkle as well to consider. Yeah, like the key with anything in season, in season tournament, whatever you want to call it, Four Nations. is just you want to make it different than the regular season, but not get too gimmicky.

Yeah, you don't want it to be an exhibition. Yes. And you want players to care. So they have to have input because the last thing you want is the people who are powering your product to not be engaged and not feel like, you know, you have to have cash prizes, you have to have something on the line as far as a trophy, all that kind of stuff.

Like I felt like the World Cup of hockey back in 2016 was straddling the line of gimmicky and two gimmicky. I think that especially in hindsight, it was really cool, the team North America and team Europe. But, you know, it's still, it's not, you know, it kind of watered down the tournament in general because you've got, you know, real nations versus these sort of made up teams.

So it depended on sort of your, what lens you're looking through as a fan. I thought that was right on the border of being too gimmicky, but really fun, especially that, that team North America team, having so many players that are dominating the league now. So yeah, I mean, I think we're just, we're in a different sporting landscape where you have to engage your fans in different ways.

I mean, we're seeing it with what Amazon's doing with the way that they cover the NHL a little bit different and it goes back to T&T and how they broadcast. Like little things like that add up and, you know, a mid-season tournament can add another layer of engagement. Okay, well, let's talk about that foreign nations then, because the next question is from Whole Hog here. through the first 10 plus games of the season, who are the players playing their way

onto Four Nations roster consideration? Now, I haven't really done like a full projection in terms of rosters on this show myself in preparation for this. I looked at some sort of preliminary ones on various different platforms to sort of get a sense of like what people were feeling and who was on the cutoff and all of that.

I've got a few names that, you know, your opinion may vary terms like, oh, that guy was going to be a lock regardless, no matter what. Or, wow, in the past month, they really improved their stock quite a bit. But I've got a handful of names here, mostly for Team USA and Canada. It feels like it's a bit more clear for the most part for Finland and Sweden. But I'm curious for your take, do you have some names that you feel like have really improved their stock through these first-hand games and either solidified their role on their respective teams or really kind of like forced their way into being a legitimate consideration for their for their GMs.

Yeah, I'll toss three names out there. So two on Team USA. The first will be Jake Sanderson, who, you know, depending on, you know, how much of an hockey nerd you are, you probably already had them pencil in on your Team USA blue line. But I think that this season, the way that he's carried Travis Hamanick and his insane defensive metrics, it's, he's not a no-brainer territory. Like there's a chance that Sanderson is not on the team. team, but I think that he's given the management group enough to work with here as far as looking at him as a shutdown guide who can also provide some offense. Could you imagine him with Jacob Slavin?

That would be one hell of a tandem for a shutdown. And also, Jake Sanderson falls into that category of kind of like a Wyatt Johnson where, yes, four nations is important and you're trying to put the best team out there, but you're also projecting towards the Olympics a little bit when you're. picking these teams. And, you know, I don't see any reason why Sanderson and conversely or not conversely, similarly why Johnson can't continue to rise and move on their trajectory in a nice way. So, you know, you want to get those guys in the system and try to figure out if they are, in fact, Olympic worthy. Another guy on Team USA, you know, close to a lock, again, depending on who you talk to,

but also someone who kind of gets lost in the shuffle. Clayton Keller, he's been incredible to start the year. I find he's just the definition of a dual spread as far as his ability to create and finish. I think he's solidified his spot now, whereas maybe coming in the season, he's a little bit of a debate. And then the one guy in Team Canada,

similar to Keller in terms of solidifying is Sam Reinhart. Now, puts up monster numbers last year. That obviously put him right in the middle of the conversation, conversation, probably penciled into a top six role. But it was possible that he starts this season, doesn't produce, and people start kind of turning on him as far as, oh, he was a one-hit wonder. But he's put up 10 goals and 13 games. A lot of those games without Alex Bargob on his line, like he's just, he's a no doubter on Team Canada now, whereas coming into the season, there was a little bit of a debate there. Also so much utility as well, right, in terms of

Yes. I think with these rosters, and we've talked about this about Olympic teams in the past, especially with like a team Canada where you have such an embarrassment of bridges of star players to choose from, you can get yourself into a little bit of trouble by Galaxy braining it with like, all right, well, we're going to bring in this role player because they're going to have to play a bit part on this team and they're going to be more used to it because it's a natural transition from their NHL team. And we're going to bring them instead of someone who's significantly better at hockey and can probably make that adjustment because they're all kind of understand what's at stake, especially with Olympics, maybe a bit less so with this tournament,

although the fact that I think it's been so long since we've seen a best-on-best and the fact that this is the first of this ilk, I think everyone is certainly going to be trying and it's going to be very prestigious. But a guy like Reinhardt, obviously, as a bumper guy on the power play, if you want to use him there, we've seen even on the Panthers where they want to use him in a more defensive role with Lundell and Lusterinen, he excels there as well, kills penalties, does everything without having a drop-off, offensively. I think that makes him incredibly appealing. So I'm with you there. I think the

Sanderson one is interesting because I completely agree with everything you said. I also think that in terms of projecting ahead, a lot of these players whose best skill sets we've already seen so far would get tapped into and maximized even more in a setting where they're playing with just significantly more talent around them. In this case, more so the partner as opposed to some forwards. in Ottawa, I think that would, he'd look significantly better from what he already is, whatever elevated level he's at right now. So I think that's an interesting one. In terms of the U.S. defensemen, because it feels like Hughes, McAvoy, Slavon, Fox are essentially locks, right? And then you add Sanderson there, I think Faber as well, based on the way he's played

and also the fact that the Minnesota Wild GM is the GM of this team as well puts him in that territory. I do want to create some space here for Zach Wrenzky, though, because he looks healthy, he looks phenomenal this season, he's such a play driver. I also just what I said with Sanderson about maximizing his skills, like his ability to sort of read plays in the offensive zone and sort of like funnel through the middle and attack that way and activate. If you're playing with much better forwards who are able to read off of you and get you the puck there and cover for you when you are caught down low, I think would just make him such a smash on a team like this. So I wanted to include his name there as well. The other player that I had for Team US is Matt Boldie,

who might already, I guess, have been a lock because I think people thought highly of him, but I think he's taking his game to a whole new level this year. I'm going to leave it at that with him because I'm doing a full show on him coming up here. So that's a little bit of a tease for that, but I really liked his game. For Canada, I've got a few names. for you here that I think might be hard pressed just because there's so much talent to choose from but I wanted to give some flowers to Travis Keneckney. The past two years kind of quietly scored at a 37 goal 78 point pace. This year he's up to 44 goal 88 point pace.

I just think he's an unbelievable player. The high danger chances in particular on the penalty kill where I feel like it's a running bit now or any time you tune into a Flyers game, no matter how poorly things are going elsewhere, once they go short-handed, I feel like it's a good bet to see Travis connect me with a breakaway or some sort of a rush opportunity he created. He's played 26 PK minutes so far this year. High danger chances in that time are only 10 to 7 for the other team. Like, they're nearly matching them in terms of quality looks they're creating when he's out there. I just think he's such a phenomenal player. Sporologic has him at 10th and controlled exits and

14th in the league in controlled zone entries as well. So in this setting where you're playing with a bunch of skill where it's going to be a puck possession game and you don't necessarily want to just like get rid of it for no reason. I think he can facilitate that as well and certainly could play a lower in the lineup. So I like him. And then maybe I just have a type because along those lines as well, let's give Brandon Hegel a little bit of a loop here as well. He's a point per game.

This year, I've talked about that line with him and Sorrelli and earlier it was Nick Paul. more recently, it's been Connor Geeky, has been sensational. He's at a 65% high-danger chance share and 59% expected goal share of Bob 15 this year to go along with the scoring and his versatility. And I just think, like, well, you've got to be cognizant of in the setting. And I'm curious to see how these games play out. By us, I just assume the pace is going to be significantly higher because it's the best of the best, right?

And hopefully it'll be a really fun environment to watch. But I really want players who are going to be able to keep up in that and even thrive in it and I feel like both Keneckney and Hagle are kind of guys that fit that bill for me where you put them all of a sudden in that spot and they're just going to be so comfortable playing that way whereas there might be some sort of like older and more sort of established players that might look a bit more out of place all of a sudden when you ramp up to speed. Well and the elephant in the room when you talk about Hagle and Kineckney is that Zach Hyman has three goals and he was, you know, close to a lock coming into the season.

as McDavid's linemate on the top line. So, you know, it doesn't mean that. Hyman's definitely not on the team or something, but there comes a point when if your team Canada, you're looking at the depth chart where you go, okay, Hegel, connect me, fantastic season so far. Heimann, not a bad season, but like the goals are going in, are we concerned about him?

And then you go, okay, can we have all three of them on the roster? Can we have two of them? Should we just have one and we just choose? and they're not perfectly the same all these players, but considering the wealth of skill and scoring and playmaking Canada has that forward, you know, you can't take too many guys of this ilk, otherwise it maybe is overthinking it. So I find that interesting where you've got Heim and trending down,

at least based on, you know, goals in the net or puck's in the net, and then you've got Hegel and Kinekney training up as far as the full package that they bring. Yeah, although I will say after a year last year where everything went his way for Hyman, pretty much everything in the first whatever 10 games were so didn't. And then the luck's starting to turn around a little bit here. And that game against Vegas on Wednesday night, Alex Petrangelo is trying to like rim the puck around behind his net and it just bounces off the end wall and comes out right in front of Hyman and he's able to like score a quick goal.

And it's like, all right, these are the bounces that we become accustomed to seeing. So I expected to start scoring more goals and by December 2nd when these lines, ups get finalized. It might look a little bit different. A few other names I wanted to toss out here for Team Finland, a guy who probably was going to be on regardless, but I feel like you can make a case should play like a legitimately high leverage role. Can I guess? Can I get her? Go for it. Luster Rain in his finish, right? Hell yeah, John. Hell. That guy rules. Yeah. He rocks. As Ryan Lambert would say, he rocks. He really does. And I feel like, because I assume we're probably going to see Barkov playing with like Rantan in terms of the premium role. But then whether

it's with Rupa Hintz and his speed in a defensive assignment or whether it's with Sebastian Aho, I mean, you could go a few different ways there. I feel like his utility as just an awesome winger who's going to do everything you need to set you up to succeed and would thrive playing with a guy like that. I feel like Lucerne's stock has just risen so much over the past like, pretty much since last postseason, right? But even the past two years. And then, on Team Finland. I guess it was kind of open behind UC Soros as the backup goalie, but I feel like Kevin Lankanin's play has really helped solidify that. I think Guukopekulukin has been fine. But Lankanin has been awesome, kind of thrust into this role with Demko, where he's just had to play

much more in his athleticism and everything he's done behind a Kinnock's defense that's giving up a lot more off the rush this season has really stood out to me, and he's a P.D.O. cast favor as well, So I feel like Lankinen, if anything were to happen to Soros or depending on the workloads, if they want to, you know, split it up a little bit. I feel like Lankinen could play a role here for Finland as well. And it's probably a team that has a lot of fun players, but certainly if they're going to compete with the U.S.s and Canada's of the world is probably going to have to, you know, in Finnish fashion, I have to try to grind out a 2-1 or 3-1 or 3-2 win.

I feel like relying on their goalies is going to be imperative. So I wanted to give him a bit of a shout there. Here's a question from DJ. After being regarded as a potentially generational player, is Connor Bedard having a let down second season? I mean, if you're looking at sort of the pace he's on for goals and points, yes, I think it's like he's on pace for 18 goals and 70 points or something. But there's a few layers to this.

One, you know, despite all the signings in the summer, he's still spending a lot of his 5-on-5 time with the same guys for last year. Felino, Kuroshev, Donato, he is spending some time with Terra Vinen and that is an upgrade, that was a good signing. But ultimately it's not like Terra Vinen is this like

drysidal like sidekick where you strap them to Bedard's wing and next thing you know, they're often running as this amazing pair. So the line made issue who is still apparent. And one thing I'll also say is that I think what's a bit underrated is that,

when Badard entered the league last year, he immediately became Chicago's best player at 18. He's now doing it at 19 again. And like, that's a lot. That's a lot. Like, not only like sort of like external pressure, etc. But just producing and, you know, being able to do what you have to do without much help

and with everyone's eyes on you. And he talked in the preseason Badard about impacting the game in other ways. You know, maybe that's. distracting from production a little bit. He did record three primary assists the other day against Anaheim. He's shooting 6.1% in all situations whereas he shot like

10.7, I think it was last year. So, like, there's so many sort of like layers to this and that's not to like excuse him. Is he playing amazing? No. But I generally find it very hard to get worked up over small samples when you're talking about superstars. It's like, if McDavid goes 10 games with three points,

it's like he'll figure it out. I feel similar with the Dard where like the floor with him is so incredibly high that even if there's some dips in scoring like by the end of the year it'll look pretty good yeah you hit the nail in the head there shooting 6.1% despite the fact that he's shooting more and his chances are pretty much the same as last year

if not a little bit elevated in 515 and just has the three goals and 14 games to show for it he's got the 12 points like I think he's going to start scoring a lot more here it's interesting though like you look at a beneath the hood a little bit, and I'm glad you hit on that there. He's tied with Nathan McKinn for the league lead and rush chances. He's in the top 10 in the league and controlled entries again. Like, he's carrying the puck a tonne. He's flashing that skill, even though the puck isn't going in. And at 515, there have been improvements. And I'm not sure how much of that is what you just said there in terms of

focusing on that specifically, feeling confident that the goals will eventually come. But with him on the ice at 515 this year, despite the fact that he's once again their number one forward in usage, The shot share is up from 41.9% to 52.5 on a Blackhawks team that's still not good. The expected goals are up from 43% to just under 50. It's at 49.8, which is very good on this team. And the goals are up from 35.6% share to 57.1. So they're like winning his minutes despite the fact that he's not specifically scoring himself. And it's going to come.

Like you watch that OT that he played against the Kings. Recently, I believe it was last weekend. He has this just unbelievably scintillating rush, right? where he like drags the puck around and brings it off the bar and then has another chance in close succession after like he's still as dynamic as ever. I'm not worried at all. And it's also important to note as you said, like for all the talk about them investing and bringing in veteran players and guys who can hopefully make life easier for him and keep up, a lot of that making life easier for him, at least recently, has come in the form of having lines beyond

whenever he's out there so they don't completely sink, right? Like they're using Hall, Bertuzi, and Falino together as a trio now. And I think a lot of the thought at the time, pretty much bringing in all three of those guys was, well, this is a player that can play with Connor Bedard. And now all three of those guys are playing together, and he's not with them. I think he's played less than 25 on five minutes this season with both Bertuzi and Hall. And so he's playing with the courage, Evan Donato, and the fact that they're still winning

those minutes is highly encouraging. And I think it's also important to note that he won't turn 20. 20 until July, a couple months after this season ends, and he just hit his 80-second career game as well. So he's finally hit a full regular season because he missed a bunch of time last year as well. So I feel like with all those contextual factors and notes and circumstances and everything, my answer to this question is unequivocally, no, it's not a let down and it's not a worry. And I feel like explosion games with highlight real goals and Big Point totals are just bubbling beneath the surface waiting to come to the top.

Absolutely. All right, John. Let's get out of here. I feel like that's all the time we have for today. I had a few other topics that I wanted to get into with you, but that just gives us an excuse to bring you back on here shortly and get into them then. I'll let you plug some stuff on the way out here.

What have you been working on? What have you put out recently? Where can people check you out? Yeah, I mean, the thing I'm working on the next couple days is a reaction slash explainer about what's going on between the NCAA and junior hockey. They're loosening up the eligibility for college

and what's the cascading effect of all that? So your best way to find that story is probably to follow me on Twitter because I tweet out all my stories and that's the best way to do it. So it's M-A-T-I-S-ED, J-O-A-N on Twitter. Mattis John, my first, sorry, my last name, first name. And yeah, thanks, Dimitri. I always enjoy coming on. All right, buddy. Well, we'll have you on again soon. We've played it off the top, but get into

the PDOCast Discord if you're not in there already. And join us there. Smash that five-star button wherever you're listening to the show. Help us out with some nice reviews. And that's all for today's show. We've got one more hour here on the PDOCast to close the week out. And then we'll be back on either Sunday night or Monday morning with our weekly rundown episode with Thomas Trance that everyone's looking forward to. In the meantime, I just wanted to thank everyone for listening to the Hockey PDOCast streaming. on the Sports Night Radio Network.