The Hockey PDOcast - Reacting to the Jets Blue Game 7 Classic We Just Watched, and This Remarkable Weekend of Hockey

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Thomas Drance to break down what we just saw from the Jets vs. Blues Game 7 classic right after the final buzzer, Mikko Rantanen's heroics on Saturday in carrying the Stars to a win over the Avalanche, and other takeaways from this remarkable weekend of playoff hockey. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

since 2015. It's the Hockey Pideo cast with your host, Dmitri Filippovin. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name's Dmitra Filipovich and joining me in studio here for a Sunday special, my good buddy, Thomas Trans. Tom, what's going on, man? I am thrilled to have a chance to talk about those two games. This weekend was as good as it gets. Like, this was peak hockey. We are very unlikely to do another Sunday special after games. as good as what we saw with the stars overcoming a 2-0 deficit against the avalanche on Saturday. And then honestly, I think the game of the year. That Winnipeg Jets, St. Louis game, I didn't think you could top what I'd seen on Saturday night.

I don't know that I thought you could top like game one of this series and the intensity. I mean, I was on cloud nine for a week after game one of this series. I didn't know that you could top the Four Nations final. And maybe, maybe this is recency by it. but that was an incredible, incredible game we witnessed between the Jets and the blues. I mean, it had everything. It had like the psycho drama of Hellebuck in the first period. Obviously, you know, getting beat on that Matthew Joseph Dragshot he should have had

and then recovering and finding his game and getting stronger as overtime persisted. I mean, to the point where he's making saves on five alarm chances and in classic Hellebuck fashion, they don't look like difficult saves. That's how dialed he got to. honestly, Neil Pionk, Neil Pionk's going to be like still logging shifts in my dreams tonight. Like that nightmare I have where I'm closing tabs in a browser all evening long, like that's Pionk just on the ice every time you look at the television.

What a game. Just what a game, what a win. I don't know that I can remember. It's the coolest game seven win I think we've seen since the Florida Panthers beat the Boston Bruins in sort of the last dance Bruins. season with the late-Mong d'Orical. Yeah, the for Hague winner. I mean, you know, this is like a once every two years we get a game that good.

Can't wait to break it all down. The common denominator of the two best games we've seen of this NHL season, the four nation's final, the one to overtime. Yep. And then this game seven between the Jets and the Blues was me and you sitting here in studio, watching it together, pacing throughout. Yeah, losing our minds. I at one point did an Ovechkin celebration where I just rammed my

myself into the door of the studio here because I didn't know what to do with myself. That's how besides myself I was, we are not, as you can tell, in Palm Springs anymore. We're back here in the friendly confines of the studio. We just got to watch Game 7 of Jets Blues double over time. We're recording right after the final buzzer. We need a moment here, I think, to gather ourselves. I was hoping because my brain is all scrambled after having been here all day and still kind of reeling from Saturday Night's thriller with the ranch and an explosion.

I was hoping you'd be my steadying force here. Unfortunately, you're even more fired up than I am. I wish Dylan Sandberg was here to steady us with ice water in his veins and kind of calm things down a little bit and defuse the situation. But we go on, what a weekend of hockey absolute scenes. Who's got it better than us? Nobody. Let's break it all down.

Yeah. Do you want to start with the hellabuck? As you'd like to say, the hellabuck of it all? The hella buck of it all. I mean, I think we can go relatively quickly. quickly on this, right? We don't have to belabor the point. I think it's worth, because think about it, we're watching live, right? After the second goal, and it was a bad one, it was very reminiscent of the Braden Shen 3-1 goal

in game six, where it's a rush shot, but it's essentially a one-on-one. Connor Hellbuck comes out to greet it, and it just goes through him. Adding insult to injury is Josh Morrissey was not seen in the game after that play as well. the broadcast was talking like, oh, is Scott Arniel looking at Eric Comrie right now? Are they going to make the switch? This is too high leverage of a moment to allow this to get the 3-0.

The panel in the intermission was talking and had differing opinions about whether you make the goalie switch because you can't afford to give up another goal here and keep it at least at 2-0. And then he steadies himself. He winds up the 3-1,

which I thought at the time was a backbreaker because the Jets had played a good second period after completely laying an egg in the first. And you're thinking... And he lost his angle again. Yep, and you're thinking, just get this to second intermission. You're down one. You've been playing in remarkably well.

Radic Faxa comes down and scores after a really bad misplay of the puck by Nikola Eelers off of a Luke Shen kind of stretch pass. And you're like, man, it's over at this point. And then he comes back, makes a couple saves in the third. I think he wound up with nine saves between the two overtimes. And yet, especially after the first overtime where he only faced the four shots, you and I were going through it. And three of them were a high danger variety, right? You had the wild turnover by Gabriel Lardy around his net that came out to Nathan Walker, and he gets it with his blocker.

You had a four-on-three where Corn Prego comes in as the trailer and lets one rip, and he stops it. You had a Jordan Kairu from basically the face-off circle ripping it as well. We've seen him score how many goals in that exact fashion, even in this series, and he stares him down and stops it. And to me, that is a massive story because I know you and I kind of, of clown on the fact that a lot of the coverage was based around psychoanalyzing Hellebuck and how confident he looked and how he didn't. But in these overtimes, he was very aggressive

and he looked like Connor Hellebuck in terms of just staring down shots and absorbing them. There were a few hairy moments where he'd go back and play a puck and you'd be like, oh, man, this could be a disaster. But in terms of actually making the stops he needed to and the shots he did face, where their season was completely on the line, if he gives up a bad one, that's going be the prevailing theme for the entire offseason heading into next year, regardless of what he does next regular season, he could win another Vezna, and this would still be hanging over him, and he just shut the door. So I do think we should focus on that off the top. We talked a little bit about it earlier on in this series. I think after the first game where he looked a little shaky, and people

were talking about his confidence, and, you know, one formulation that I do think matters in thinking about goaltending in the postseason. I mean, the hella buck of it all is a huge talk. that we can break down at length. The fact that we've never had a chance to see him come into the playoffs, having played, you know, 50-ish games or 55 games, you know, the fact that so many of the goaltenders that played the most games this season are already done, right? Like, are already done with some guys, you know, having not effectively, like, made it, you know,

healthy through the playoffs or into the playoffs. I mean, Vasilevsky out after the first round. You know, Ilya Serochin and Shasturkin, who both hit 60 plus, not themselves, especially down the stretch with Sorokin, where he really got run into the ground. Montembow, hurting the playoffs. Gustafson was great, but nonetheless, done. You know, there's basically two of, I guess it's nine goaltenders to play 55 or more are done. And the two that remain are Hellebuck and Jake Ottinger, who was obviously tremendous.

for Dallas. So there's that side of it. There's the overuse side of it. But like truly, I do think this was a series where Helibuck's form easily, especially in those three games in St. Louis, could have cost his team. And I feel like what happened in game seven is what you sometimes need on a long playoff run where you're able to pull one back in a game where you're goalie. You know, I don't, I wouldn't say that Helibuck was like so bad that you couldn't win the game, but this was nonetheless a game where the Jets managed to outscore a couple of softies that their goaltender permitted on a night when he wasn't completely dialed. And that's really the first time that that happened, obviously, in this series.

I mean, you know, yes, he allows seven in, or not, he doesn't allow all seven, but they allow seven in game three. It's a disaster class for Hellebuck, but they score two, you know, another tough game where it really snowballs on them fast, despite a pretty good team level, performance in game four, they score one. Game six, they get two, and one of them's late and means nothing. You know, sometimes you need to score four. Sometimes you need to be able to come through on a night when your goaltender performs suboptimely. And if you give a guy like Helibuck enough runway, I'm pretty confident that he's going to stabilize and give this team, you know,

game stealing performances. He did not, however, do that in this series. I think it's fair to say blues lose in seven in a series in which they shot 15.9% five on five. Like that's wild to have outscored like they scored nine more goals than Winnipeg at five on five mostly because of sort of efficiency and Hellebuck struggles wild to have been able to survive with like a sub eight four one say percentage. Well, I believe the Adam Lowry and what? see how they wind up scoring. I think it's Piong's goal.

I think it's Piong's goal. You used the Bruder film style that you broke it down frame by frame. It definitely hits a blues defender on the way and changes the angle. But Lowry kind of wax at it and we're not sure if he hits it. That was the first five-on-five goal. I believe they scored since game five. Right. Right?

Because they scored a couple of power play goals. And obviously with the net empty and the extra attacker. In this one, we've got to talk Nick La Euler's here. Who makes his series debut in game six? I think surprisingly so. I kind of talked after the. that game where I was under the impression that we wouldn't see him at all this postseason based on the state of his injury.

And you had the full gamut of emotions, the full roller coaster ride experiences game, right? I kind of mentioned how he flubbed that puck that led to the Radic Faxa 3-1 goal. Number of times he was kind of fighting the puck and it was just hopping over his stick or he was misplaying it. Clearly not for a lack of effort or trying. He had a couple just big boy style plays where he like, knocked Jordan Cairo off the puck in retreat possession. Like he was getting after him.

We were laughing right before the Adam Lowry goal, maybe six minutes left or so in the second overtime. Everyone looks like they've been playing hockey for four and a half hours and they're moving like they're in mud. And then all of a sudden, just Nikola Eilers gets his shot out of a cannon and just like full speed skating around the offensive zone and you just started cackling. You're like, hell yeah, that rocks.

And it definitely did. That's very Nikola Eelers. The sequence at the end of regulation in the lead up to the perfetti goal. Yeah. Was one of the most remarkable sequences of puck touches I've ever seen? Because 30 seconds left, the puck comes to him at the point. It hops over his stick. He has to regroup in the neutral zone.

You're like, man, what a killer. Gets it back with eight seconds left. Goes for a massive rip. Completely fanz it. It squibs to the corner. Adam Lowry does a remarkable job of basically boxing out, two blues defenders, wins it back to him. And then he has the presence of mind. He also, I just want to note, it's not just that he wins it back to him.

It's that he wins it back to him with the zip. Yeah, he perfectly sets the table for him again. He perfectly sets the table for him. And now a normal human being, I think, in that position would say there's four seconds left. I just shanked one. I'm going to put everything into this shot and try to redeem myself, right? And see what happens. Maybe it bounces in off someone.

Instead, what he does is he goes down on one knee and he slap passes a bull. little cross-ice to Kyle Connor, who then one-times it, and I think shanks it himself. And fortunately, Cole Perfetti is standing in the slot, and he tips it right under the bar. And it leads to this amazing sequence where absolute bedlam in Winnipeg, we're jumping around in the studio. There's less than two seconds left in the game to send it to overtime. And, I mean, just unbelievable poise for Mueller's, I think, unbelievable self-belief in yourself as well to have that type of restraint.

I hope that everyone one day can believe in themselves as much as Nikola Eelers believes in himself because just the presence of mind to do that and the willingness to even try that, I could probably count on one hand the number of NHLers who would have done that in that moment and it led to the tying goal and so I think that was incredibly cool.

And then you saw, I mean, even before that, he had the one play when they were still trailing where Perfetti gets it to him, he kicks it to his stick, Binnington makes a shoulder save. It's 3-2, he goes behind the net, he whips it out to Perfetti, and then they had that review where they were checking to see if the puck had squeaked across the goal line.

And it died right on the line, yeah. But I mean, for all the mistakes and all the flubs of the puck and everything, the amount he was creating. And I know that, you know, they didn't even wind up scoring the fourth goal in second OT with those guys on the ice. But in watching the overtimes, it really felt like Perfetti and Eilers, especially without Shifley and without Morrissey. We're the only guys with real offensive juice for the Jets. And I was thinking if they were going to score and prevail in this game, it would be one of those guys creating it because they were just getting their most dangerous. Eelers had the breakaway that Binnington stopped in the first overtime as well. It wound up being a point shot that hit a couple bodies and went in,

which is very typical second OT fashion for the NHL. But yeah, I thought both him and Perfetti and Perfetti had the two goals. And really, you know, after us lamenting all the missed opportunities with empty netters and yawning cages in the first four or five games of the series, he scores a power play goal in game six. He scores two here. He was awesome. I mean, the little sort of Crosby rant and in-style wedge at the side of the man

off the Kyle Connor pass for the first one was a thing of beauty and he was awesome and both those guys just delivered for a team that really needed it because, you know, Connor had that primary assist on the third goal. He had the puck on his stick a lot. I thought he was relatively conservative or perimeter based

for a lot of those sequences. He was kind of cycling around the neck going high in the zone. Probing and looking for something, nothing was available to him wasn't that threatening. It really was completely hinging on those two guys carrying them offensively in this one. It felt like he was more important through the neutral zone.

Yeah. It felt like not his, so in the first period, he had a pretty brutal sequence on the first goal, the Kyru goal. Yeah, the controller died and he kind of glides in the defensive zone. Yeah. Well, and he ends up well outside the circles and, you know, probably could have done better to make a desperation play after Perako overpassed it. And then it is also his giveaway that results in the Matthew Joseph goal, although I'd say,

lightly screened drag shot off the rush, that's one Hellebuck has to have. You'd like to see Connor make a different play, perhaps in managing that puck, but I don't think you look at that as like the sort of error that should result in a goal against if your goalie stops a saveable puck. But the way that Connor was able to at least get up, you know,

and sort of break through the neutral zone, skate with possession through the neutral zone, there was a lot of probing both below the hash marks and at the perimeter. And I do think that mattered for the Jets just in terms of giving them control at the top end of their lineup, even if I didn't think he was especially on his game. And honestly, I think you sort of go down the list, like I thought Gabe Volardi struggled massively tonight. That said, they got some pretty dogged performances from guys like Niederrider from Aiafalo. and their defenders were lights out.

I mean, I thought Samberg was basically, his game was basically like a warm glass of milk in terms of just calming down everything that occurred over the course of the game. Like he was so smooth, so collected, never under duress seemingly. Pionk, I mean, we could write a Tolstoy-length novel about Neil Pionk's game

because honestly, that's like the amount of ice time that he logged. but he was just absurd. That was an absurd individual performance from Pionk in Morrissey's absence, and I thought Hayden Flurry was excellent. He was excellent, too, on the overtime sequence. I mean, he has a shot that actually ends up sort of grazing out the outside of the post on that shift, but he also has the high to low pass, slap pass.

Yeah, the wherewithal not to force another shot, but extend the possession. Go to the side of the net, and then it comes back up where Pionk does sort of change the angle, little juke and and sends in the shot for the game winner, which I think it will ultimately be credited to him. And man, just the Jets needed sort of every moment. Playing Flurry in the first place turned out to be inspired. Like, I don't know if they win that game with Logan Stanley in the lineup instead of Flurry.

I mean, he plays, what Hayden Flurry does. He plays 13 minutes in the series in game four, I believe. Yeah. And that's his only appearance. Last minute, they put him in. instead of Logan Stanley, they lose Josh Morrissey a couple minutes and they're left with five defensemen. Imagine what this looks like if one of the five defensemen is Logan Stanley with the workload then that was asked of all these guys to play. Hayden Flurry plays 33 minutes in this game,

which is fourth amongst Jets defenders. And I thought he was phenomenal, especially in the offensive zone, like extending plays, dancing around with the park, walking the line. Yeah, he had confidence. He was playing like assertive hockey. I love that his first shift was the biggest he check because he, and it was a very routine carrying the puck out of the zone with possession, but I was like, Jets third pair defender doing this? Is this allowed?

Well, and he got over the blue line and immediately just went for the change. Like, it wasn't like he was doing too much, he was playing within himself, but just the ability to sort of pull the, you know, safety release hatch with his feet through the neutral zone just mattered, mattered,

and you knew it would matter early. obviously the Jets need some heroic six on five for it to matter in overtime, but I thought he was a huge ad. And by the way, I don't want to ignore, like we'll talk a lot more about this game and our reaction to it. But I don't want to ignore some of the Jets' performances we saw. Specifically, I thought Pereko was immense. The Blues performances, yeah. Sorry, what did I say?

You got the Jets on the mind. Yeah, I do. Some of the Blues performances, I thought Pereko was immense in this game. Broberg in the first overtime was incredible. I think he led the team. He played nearly 10 minutes. He was pushing for offense. Yes, he was pushing for offense. He was regularly below the goal line in the offensive zone.

I actually was watching Broberg play thinking to myself that Broberg has the energy to do this and that I doubt any Jets defender does. I wonder if that matters as tonight sort of goes on. And maybe if we got to a third overtime, it might have. But I thought Broberg, I mean, he was excellent all serious, but I thought he was really pushing, especially as this game went on. And then, you know, I thought an awful lot of blues players, especially guys like Torupchenko, gotta shout him out again.

No, but he was a unit in this game. Like there were some huge hits. I thought the Jets, sorry, the Blues, especially in the first period, like set a tone with a ton of bone crunching hits, really staggered the Jets who had probably their worst first period of the season. I mean, I think they had one of their worst periods of the season. season to open this game. And I don't know how much of it was on them and how much of it was on a Blues team that showed up hungry and ready to play and nearly sort of staggered the Jets to the point of a TKO right off the hop. The Jets in that first period finished with three shots.

They were by Luke Shen, Mason Appleton, and Dylan Sandberg. No chances. Zero point one expected goals generated. It was about as big of a goose egg as you're going to lay in that spot. And I do give the Blues a lot of credit because you were noting in real time their strategy and how it kind of mixed up from what we'd seen from them previously in the series, right? I think they kind of understood the moment and the pressure that the Jets would be facing, and especially after the first goal they scored, I think it was a good bet on their part because we'd seen the Jets kind of crumble in those spots in this series, and they were just kind of sending the puck into space and then going after them

and just throwing the body around with reckless abandon and were punishing them. My one final note on Nealers, I forgot to bring this up. He contemplated a lacrosse attempt in the first overtime when he had the puck behind the net. And I think that would have broken everyone's brain if that had been the overtime winner. And the fact that he even tried it is hilarious. To your point, I did think that especially in the first overtime, the Blues having six available defensemen compared to the five for the Jets, was very visible because you could see every time that the Blues would get an opportunity to push in transition,

they'd have a fourth defender joining the rush. We saw Pareko get a great chance off of that. Him and Broberg were very live. Now, as the game progressed, Jim Montgomery was very reluctant to use Ryan Seuter, right? I believe he played only 16, 17 minutes or so in these five periods, essentially. And so that mitigated the edge a little bit

because really they were functionally using five defensemen for most of it themselves. But with how well Pereko and Broberg were playing, I did think that gave advantage. Neil Pionk, 2835. after the second intermission. So just in the third period in overtimes, he played 29 minutes nearly,

finishes with 46, Pareko had 42, 22, himself. Yeah, it was absurd. I mean, he looked completely gassed, and then all of a sudden he'd come alive for an offensive zone sequence. In the second overtime, Dylan Sandberg got caught up the ice. Yeah, he had that great stick check

to knock the puck away off a rush attempt. I mean, he was phenomenal. How do you have anything left in the tank? Harn Ryan Singh and John Garrett, by the way. John Garrett was awesome. Awesome. The joke he made about when Brandon Tanav in the second overtime blocked it, essentially turned around and got it with his butt,

and he's like, his brother would have faced that head on. Yeah, I would have blocked it with his teeth. And then, no, but I thought, and I thought, sing with the game tying goal call, right, that was what a game, what a series, what a sport, right? A direct allusion to the fact that we've been living in sort of 24 of the most magical hours that we could possibly script for the NHL and the Stanley Cup playoffs. I thought that was just a really generous, smart, exciting call, elevated the moment.

I think Harne-Sing just absolutely nailed it. I also, just because this is important to be brought up on the PDO cast in particular, but there's an awesome video going around of the TNT studio crew reacting to the Cole Perfetti winner. And as they watch the goal go in, it's incredible that Rick Bonas completely has zero reaction to Cole Perfetti's goal.

It just, it needs to be brought up for the benefit of the PDO cast and PDO cast law. Oh, Rick. You never see, you never fail at this point. That's so good. Wow. I, um... Do you want to get into Perfetti a bit more?

I mean, so good. Like his hands, everything in tight. He had a couple opportunities in overtime as well. I mean, they needed him to step up, right? This was kind of, I mean, he's been really good for them all year. And him and Eilers in the regular season had found such a nice connection. We spoke a lot about I think our first Sunday special of the season. Yeah. When he kind of started the year strong, you had this great anecdote about seeing him in the, in the prospects camp a couple years ago and just sort of his attitude about everything and his approach and how you're not surprised that he was having the success he's having right now.

This was a big time game from him. They desperately needed this exact source of offense. He gave them the two goals. And yeah, I thought he was immense. So it's really cool to see it. I think one of the most stunning goals that I've ever seen. Honestly, I think that that end game from the Jets and when you sort of watch the highlight, just the way that, you know, Lowry wins a battle, recycles the puck, then wins another battle

to recycle it again after the flub. You know, the fact that he's, he wins that battle a second time and immediately just gives it back to his teammate who just shanked a shot. The Eler's nerve, the raw nerve of that guy to try a cross-seam pass in that situation. Just ludicrous. Balls of steel. Balls of steel. And then, you know, that whether it was intentional or not, whether it was a slap pass or he just like was handcuffed by the pass and knew he had no time. to just get anything on it the way.

And, you know, classic Kyle Connor, he gets a fair bit on it while kind of like falling, the pass is a little bit behind him, doesn't really matter. He just finds a way to torque his body and then, yeah, perfetti with the hands. And, you know, the perfetti story for me when I watch him play is I still do think he requires some service.

I think that because of his speed and because he's tough, like he plays bigger than his size, but he's not a big guy, right? Because of that, I think there's an element to which he doesn't win pucks for himself. He kind of requires someone like Yelers in my mind to supply him with some of those scoring opportunities or the puck in good situations. And, you know, I think it's helped him like he's had chemistry with guys like Nita Riter too because Nita Rider can help him win Pucks back.

I do think he's a guy who needs a digger and ideally a more mobile puck carrier on his line too. So I do think you need to, or teams need to be thoughtful about how they utilize him to get the most out of him. But when you're as competitive as that guy and you have hands and hockey IQ like he has, which was on full display in multiple instances tonight, you can make magic. And he made magic for the Jets in a pretty legendary performance. I think what made the comeback especially stunning, I mean, obviously the two goals that late with the net empty and the last one being with less than two seconds left would be stunned. running regardless. But I really thought for the majority of the third period before they pulled the goalie, the Jets had totally misplayed their hand because I felt that they weren't really showing urgency reflective of the moment. Like they were down two goals at home with their season on the line.

And they were just kind of like matter-of-factly going about business, just continuing to play the same way they had previously. I didn't think their defenseman really showed any green light in terms of like aggressively pinching down the wall, kind of cheating for offense. It was annoying to me, actually. Yeah, and then even after what, so I believe, did it come after the three-two goal? They have an icing, and they're going to, or it was a three-one-to-the-time, icing, and Scott Arneill calls a time-out to allow the blues skaters who are on the ice to get a bit of a break before the ensuing face-off, and then it's three-two, and there's a neutral zone and they still keep Hellebuck in, and the puck goes deep in the blue zone, and I'm like,

man, it sure would be nice to have a six-jet skater out there to try to retrieve this puck, and it still didn't wind up mattering because they get those two goals at the end. Even if you keep him at the hash marks. You know what I mean? Like even if you have the goalie at the hash marks, give him a head start for if you win the draw, right? You know, I thought, I think you're right. I think there was some change left on the ground

in terms of the Jets approach late. But, I mean, ultimately they pull it out and they pull it out in just stunning fashion. I mean, pick your jaw up off the ground fashion. I think the other context to the Euler's discussion is I was thinking about this after he misplayed that puck that led to the faxical. Did we talk about the kick to his stick?

Yeah, I brought it up as part of the flurry. It was unbelievable. He has that misplay on the faxicle. Then he takes a penalty right after, and he's sitting in the box. The cameras panning to him looking to ejected. I was just thinking, like, this could be, and then especially with the misplays before the brilliant cross-hise pass,

like these could be the last moments of Nikola Eilers in Winnipeg in a Jets uniform with his pending free agency and likelihood that he probably goes somewhere else. And it's like how depressing would that. have been if those were the last moments and sequences that you see of that. And then he redeemed himself in the way he does and at least advances in the round two and gets to play a handful of more of playoff games at the very least here. So, all right, let's take our break here. Really quick, just really quick.

I just want to note that what we saw from the blues across the last two months, right? Just the run through the balance of the regular season. And then the way they were able to push this Winnipeg Jets team. really right to the brink, I mean, within three seconds of advancing to the second round. And, you know, we were talking about it during the game when things look grim for Winnipeg that, hey, look, if we see this Blues team go up against Dallas, it's going to be more interesting than probably the Vegas books price it out as. Like this St. Louis team probably has some of the speed and some of the forechecking ability

and some of the one-shot scoring to stress Dallas out. I think the idea that we've often had on this program and in our conversations of the blues is like a bit directionless, a team where, you know, I'm watching Brandon Sodd for Check in November and thinking this is embarrassing to what we saw across the last eight weeks. I just think we've got to tip our cap to a blues team that ended up really entertaining us. I think ends this season on a very high note, despite how sour this game seven's end is for that. them in terms of sort of what they look like going forward, the amount of juice they've got, the fact that they were able to push the president's trophy winner to this extent without Dylan Holloway? I mean, there's an awful lot to like about what Doug Armstrong and the Blues and Jim Montgomery for sure have sort of done in terms of turning around the outlook of this franchise, just in a very, very quick span of time here. No, I completely agree. We're talking so much about Broberg's impact, Holloway,

who was really the main driver of that 12-game winning streak. He had 15 points in 10 games before getting hurt, doesn't play a single second in this. And so obviously the losses of Shifley and Morrissey in this game, Valardi missing the first four, Ely was missing the first five, are crippling for what the Jets should look like in theory. But it's the NHL playoffs and injuries aren't an excuse because on the other side, their most important forward essentially played zero minutes.

Also, I was laughing thinking because I thought, like, Nathan Walker and watching these games was incredibly involved. Yeah, it was awesome. And I love the juice that he brought. And him and Toropchenko together in a line, it just cracks me up so much. they've got like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito vibes as an oddball couple. It's so good to see.

One last note before we go to break here on this, and then we'll switch and talk about a different subject. Did we talk enough about Adam Lowry? I don't think we did. Okay, let's do that when we come back from break. We've got to take our break here. We come back, talk Adam Lowry, and then we'll switch series and cover what else we saw this weekend. You're listening to the Hockeypedio cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the Hockeypediocast doing our Sunday special with Thomas Drens.

As we said before break, we've got to talk a little bit more about. Adam Lowry because he's such a stud. I thought he's made so many connective plays in this game. He played 35-15 minutes. The Blues generated 0.4 expected goals in that time. He's obviously had to play an even larger role in the absence of Mark Shifley, essentially using him to get whatever scoring line they want going in the top six. I loved his post-game interview with Scott Oak as well. It was so it was just perfectly odd brand. What do you say? Like, we cut her clothes or something. Yeah, we cut it real close there. No kidding. This game seven tying goal in NHL history.

I thought he was awesome. And similar to what we're saying about Sandberg in terms of the calming presence, I feel like whenever he's out there in the defensive zone, you kind of trust that he's just going to make the right play and either get it out of harm's way or get it to a teammate to do so. So I thought he was incredible. And whether he winds up getting credit for the overtime winner or not, I think he deserves a lot of credit for just his massive performance,

especially stepping up in a much bigger role in these final two games. Yeah. The, I mean, guys are a plow horse. He wins so many battles. He was incredible for Winnipeg defensively in this game. There were a number of big hits, big sequences in which he separated opponents from pucks, and then, you know, the work at the net front on the game winner, whether he touched it or not. And I'm dubious, but we'll see sort of how it ultimately gets scored.

But it doesn't really matter. The truth is that the attention that he created, the havoc that he created in the slot, in addition to what Peonk did to sort of change the angle, that created the goal. That created the goal and the win for the Jets. So, no, I mean, I think the Adam Lowry, like Adam Lowry is without question the template elite third line center at this point in the NHL. And realistically, I think you're totally fine with him up lineup. up, you know, he's not relative to what you'd be with Shifley, just because him and Connor have such an interesting offensive dynamic that's basically replaceable for this Jets team.

But what he did to effectively blanket, have that sort of oppressive impact on the Blues attack in this one, I think was essential, especially because, you know, it took two hours of real time for Hullabuck to find his game. Man, what an incredible weekend. I mean, I'm still reeling from this. just because it was so, I mean, the stakes, the drama, the script being written out in real time as well, right, on the Saturday with what Randon did to his former club, in this one with the Jets, about as far on the ropes as you can be, and then staring down just such a disappointing end to a president's trophy season, facing so many future questions about where you go from here, whether you've hit your ceiling. I mean. Well, and the stakes conversation that we've been having, right?

The stakes of this comeback versus not having been able to achieve it. The way that we'd think about this Jets team probably playing their last game with Nikola Euler's, right? Perhaps playing one of their last games where they can, you know, comfortably spend to the upper limit of the salary cap, right? All of this change that's sort of coming down the pike for this Jets organization and this specific Jets group. you know, to make sure that they advance this year. I think it's night and day in terms of how we'll think about and remember this team regardless of what happens next. Do you want to talk about the other game this weekend?

Because I just did. I mean, I've been here in studio for 14 hours now. I think I've lost track of time. I did a full show on Stars Aves before this, and we spent, as you'd imagine, a bunch of time talking about renting it, but I know it's a topic you're quite passionate about, especially from a team-building perspective. and maybe that applies kind of wider reaching to the NHL as a whole.

I'll let you get into it a little bit here. I can add on anything I haven't already said so far on the topic. But I think, I mean... We just have to... I think we have to just talk about how nuke it was. I mean, it was just... And honestly, I think the... To some extent the Jets come back,

although not powered by a star player of Rantanin's quality, I think still demonstrates the concept that we have to keep in mind, which is that while we talk about playoff hockey is, you know, defense wins championships and you've got to win games ugly at this time of year and on and on, in practice when we get to the playoffs and we're actually seeing these games and the chips are actually down, what do these games look like, right? It looks like, you know, that Sharks Vegas Golden Knights game in Game 7. It looks like, you know, the Montour late goal against Boston,

followed by the Marchand breakaway with seconds taking off the clock, followed by the Verhege game winner. It looks like the games we saw this weekend. You know, Nathan McKinnon seizing the initiative early in the third period and appearing to ice the game and then rantan and just willing his team back into it. Hockey-wise, though, really quickly, the Rantanin goal that got the rally started is, I think, a textbook example of the conversation we've been having repeatedly on these episodes

over the course of this season where it's like sometimes it's not a defensive breakdown. The way that he enters there, the combination of size and puck skill that he has that basically no one else does. And if you really watch, especially the highlight from the camera behind, like when you see it from behind him, it's such a perfect example of how far out in front of his body his hands are while he's, you know, making the deke and entering the zone and then changing the angle on the shot. I mean, that is very typical puck control stuff that you see from Brayden point-sized forwards. And to see it from someone with his height, it's pretty unique. There's just no one else in the league that I think makes the play in that specific way. And then to put it on a position.

And then it goes bar down. Oh, yeah. I mean, like, goalie's not at fault. Defense isn't at fault. Everyone's basically, like, that's just the perfect definition of just a nothing you can do game-breaking play. And so. Well, also I love on that goal that ESPN is essentially replicating like the baseball steroids era of McGuire and Bonds, but just applying it to their posts. Right.

Because Stankov had one earlier this postseason in game one of the devil series where he rang one, Barronin. And it just is like deafening ping. And this one as well where I'm like sitting on my couch. I'm like, oh my God. I just like, startle jumped out of my seat. And I think, you know, I'm very disappointed that the NHL went away. from allowing water bottles to be dislodged. I thought that it was an incredibly great visual

when a guy would just snip it and the water bottle would just go fly and water would be shooting everywhere and then the goalie would have to go and pick it up in a walk of shame and we've been deprived of that. This is the next best thing. And so I'm all for it. I think every broadcast now

should just be making like comically hyperbolic post sounds for every single bar and end goal because, I mean, it just sounds so much better. Yeah, sign me up. And so anyway, I think to come back to the, point of these chaotic playoff games, you know, with the state that the Dallas Star's roster was in on, I guess, the day before the deadline when they executed the Ranton deal. And the fact that, like, locked in was that they were going to have to find a way to leg it out on the right

side of their defense corps, that at least in terms of Hayeskinen's health and a variety of other factors, there were, there were things that were trending for this to maybe not be Dallas's year. And I really do see similarities between them making this commitment, right? Let's bring in Rantan at the expense of Stankovin and multiple firsts, three premium assets. Let's bring in Rantinin. Whether this is our year or not, we're going to get eight years with an elite player of a caliber that we do not have, right? As great as Jason Robertson is and as great as Mero Haskin is, as great as Jake Ottinger is.

I think the world of Thomas Harley is as, I mean, honestly, I think appear to Miro Hayskinin as absurd as that says, sounds relative to like the context of how we were talking about both of them six months ago. I think Harley's an elite defenseman at this point in his own right. The truth is that Rantan is a qualitatively different variety of beast, right? a totally different magnitude of monster. And bringing in that player at the expense of, say, spending assets or similar volume of assets to like shore up the right side because it makes more sense in terms of your overall

team built, to chase upside at the expense of like floor, at the expense of a holistic overview of strengthening your team and your team's needs, I think gets rewarded in the playoffs in part because you need to be able to achieve the remarkable in critical moments when the chips are down. And it just felt like such a statement moment or a reminder of that, how powerful it can be to have that level of sort of, I mean, like the thin part of the bell curve range of outcomes in your lineup for that moment where you're down to nothing on home ice against McKinnon in the AFS. And, you know, I like to think of this as a twin of the Kachukh deal now, right?

Where it's like a team risks taking a step back or at least is willing to make a move that arguably makes their roster less, quote unquote, complete or lowers their floor in pursuit of ideally an extended championship window and a higher ceiling overall. and it turns out doing so, actually you are rewarded right away. I think there's a useful frame through which we can maybe better understand what works and what matters and how teams should be prioritizing sort of their activity through sort of the lens of the retinent acquisition and what we saw on Saturday night. Yeah, I mean, it's such a short list of players who ultimately matter from the perspective of meaningfully changing your franchise's outlook and destiny. And by that, it's generally the players who, in those exact spots you described,

against the set defense when the other team is holding on to a lead late in the playoff game, can out of thin air not only create a high danger scoring chance, but turn those shots into goals. And that's functionally exactly what he did. I thought his performance in that game six, which they ultimately wound up losing to the better team on that night because the ads were just snowballing chance after chance and eventually got a couple bounces

and it went there away. Those four goals he created in the second period were breathtaking. Like in particular, some of the puck protection stuff along the wall where he's like holding off poor little Samdraard and just like dishing it off into space

for Rupa Hans to chase it down. He did that time and time again. I'm going to post, I was working on that today in between shows a Miko Renton in Round 1 mixtape. I'm going to post it. It's nine minutes long on YouTube. It's an incredible display of physical

dominance even before the points started coming for him in that series he was just doing whatever he wanted and creating looks and eventually the goal started to come in the very last possible moment for him and that made the difference in that series but yeah i mean full marks to him and and the stars forgetting him and it was an incredible performance now let me ask you this given what we saw right so here's the other part of this that i think is interesting because the flip side of the coin of what i'm talking about where like you're less complete but you have the upside piece the player with the capability of winning you a game single-handedly on your lineup and how that can hit right away, even if it feels like a bet that's designed to hit over the long term.

The counter to that, the perfect counter to that is, I don't know that you could do a better job than Chris McFarland did of resetting your lineup in season than the Colorado Avalanche did. And for most of what we saw going into this series, down the stretch, after the deadline, like I was pretty confident that the short-term moves to sort of bring in Coyle and Nelson and Ad Drury and Natchez, you know, Lingren that the avalanche had made had set them or put them a nose ahead of the stars for the purposes of at least this season. Right. Now, I think we all understood that losing Rantin

would lower the avalanches ceiling, but it looked so good, the stylistic fit between Natchez and McKinnon was so good that, you know, to some extent, I feel like that contrast just sort of adds texture or maybe urgency, depth to our understanding of sort of what Rantanin accomplished individually and for the stars as a team in that first round series.

It's like, in terms of prioritizing need and depth and building a holistic sort of statement of a team, I think the abs get an A plus. And yet, even that was overwhelmed by sort of what I think the stars have begun to unlock by bringing Rantanin into the fold. Yeah, I think maybe the only confusing part would be I assume that after they made the Rantan in trade and sort of apply their calculus of like, he wants a certain amount. we're not willing to pay that because it's a bad investment. And so instead we're going to make this deal. Nature just helps us now, but also improves our flexibility, right? Because he makes a significantly less amount. And he's on the books next year.

And we have this kind of cloud hanging over us with the uncertainty of Gabe Landisg and his future and his availability at the time they made the deal. And so this isn't going to be necessarily a walkover year for us. We're still going to be a very good team. But we're not all in this year. and then as they got closer to the deadline, they instead said, all right, let's just throw a ton of future capital to get Ryan Lingren, to get Brock Nelson, to get Charlie Coyle,

obviously got metal stats contract off the books as well. But they kind of tried to have their cake and eat it too, I guess, in terms of pivoting on the fly after they had already determined that this was the direction they were going in. Yeah. And maybe part of that was, I think, in the meantime, Miro Hayskin gets hurt. I think that opens a pretty sizable hole in the central.

they're viewing yet as all right well we have keel mccara nathan mckenon we shouldn't waste a single season while we have these guys at their prime and they're right and they're right and they're come into the series with no mirro hasten and jason robinson gets hurt in the meantime and they still lose in excruciating fashion i wanted to i mean we're going to run out of time here because we only got a couple minutes left i want to talk to you about the coaching landscape as well right because whether it's how critical we've been of jim hiller and the job he did in the series against edmonton and it seems like he's probably going to survive and at least stick around for a bit with the Kings or what's going to happen now with whether the Aves have a reactionary move to this,

what Jared Bednar's future is, whether what kind of wholesale changes you make there or whether you just kind of tinker on the margins. I'm fascinated by that as well. I don't know. We can kind of put a pin in that because I don't think we're going to get any resolution between now and the next time we talk when we have more runway here to discuss it. But I think it's a fascinating part of all this. My view anyway is the Aves shouldn't overreact.

That was... Well, they should invest in some assistant coaches. Sure. I'm down with that. But I think Bednar is an elite head coach, and I don't think you should, you know, walk away from that unless you've got an upgrade or at least, you know, like a 1A answer ready to go in your back pocket. You know, and then the last team building part of this, because if we're going to put a pin in head coaches, let me just, let's end this with a question. Given the path now available to them, do you look at the Carolina Hurricanes decision? to short sell or not to short sell but to quickly turn around and sell rannin

versus going for it again the way they had with gensel the year prior given this sort of impact that he was able to have against the Colorado avalanche and sort of what we assume that they'll need if they're going to break through and get past both Washington and presumably one of Florida or Toronto but probably Florida I think there's too many complicated extending circumstances to answer that fairly, right? Because part of it was for such an efficiency monster offensively the way Ranton is. And what we saw in this series, things were drying up there. And right, like he had a remarkably low shooting percentage. Pucks just weren't going in with him

on the ice. We both noted at the time that everyone involved kind of looked quite miserable. Yeah. In the process. And it seems like it just wasn't a happy relationship. Now, you could definitely ding them for not having done more legwork, I think, previously, to determine that that would be a fit. and that this wouldn't happen in the time between that as the trade deadline. With that having happened, though, I think I still stand firm in what we said at the deadline of they did pretty well in pivoting on the fly, recouping some very valuable assets. We've seen Logan Stancoven play a very nice role for them, and he's an awesome player. Cross control that moving forward, all those picks as well.

They're going to have a ton of flexibility this offseason. They're in pretty good shape heading into round two. They looked good to my eye against an overmatch and underman Devils team in round one. And so, yeah, I don't think ultimately there's necessarily, for as much as we talk about this as being the model you and I would adopt, I don't think there's necessarily, it's not black and white in terms of team building either. I think there's multiple ways you can build a very sustainable contender. I'm with you that I'm getting more increasingly in the camp of the Florida, Vegas, now Dallas model of even if you don't are making your team whole. Yeah. Just getting as many meaningful impact players and then figuring.

everything else out and hoping that they're just going to all ties will rise because of those few guys you have. And that's becoming increasingly compelling to me as we see these teams have success. But that's not going to be the path for everyone, especially smaller market teams. Yeah, although I would say I do still think Carolina is going to be like the success of this build is going to require them landing that player, whether it's because they continue to draft at high volume and develop the way they do, or because they position themselves to be players in that. I do, however, think while the star players matter, as we saw with, you know, McDavid last year, you can hit a level we've never seen before.

You still need multiple kicks at the can. And I think ultimately that's the key, whether it's like that's the key and the commonality between the Colorado decision and the Carolina decision and frankly the Dallas decision. It's one thing to take one more run with Mika Randin. It makes an awful lot more sense if you're taking multiple runs. Yeah. And I do think that that's the, That's the rub, and I think it should be. Like, I think that's three of the smartest teams in the league,

effectively showing us that they agree on that topic. All right, we got to get out of here. The Jets and Blues just blew our mind so much. I had this laundry list of topics I want to get into you. I was like, man, we're going to spend 10 minutes on Mac Coronado's extension. We're going to talk about our trip to the Intuit Dome earlier this week. We're going to get into sports. We're going to get into a wide array of topics.

You and I'll be back next Sunday, so we're going to get into it then. I wanted to talk Vegas, Edminton, with you as well, but we'll see it. couple games of that and then we'll reconvene and break it all down. Anything to plug specifically? Lots of coaching search content coming at theathletic.com. All right, buddy. Well, this was fun as always. I hope everyone enjoyed it. Hopefully we were coherent in gathering our thoughts after what we just saw. I mean, I've done. I might have called Sandberg a tall glass of milk, so maybe not my final. At least no one was a pooper scooper today. I believe we've done nine shows here since last Saturday. it's been a crazy week, but I mean, this is the best time of year, so we got to do it for the people.

Give us the five stars wherever you listen to the show, pop into the PDO guest Discord, and join us as well. That's all for today. We'll be back in a couple days once we settle into these round two matchups, and we're going to break all those games down then. Thank you for coming along for the ride and listening to us here on the Sportsnet Radio Network.