The Hockey PDOcast - Response Games, and Level of Urgency Heading Into Them

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

John Matisz joins Dimitri to talk about the Leafs disappointing performance in Game 3, adjustments the Devils made to bounce back in their series, and what Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid did themselves in Game 2. This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

dressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey P.D.O.cast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to our Hockey PEOCast. My name is Dimitri Philpovich. And joining me is my good buddy John Mattis. John, what's going on in? Not a whole lot. We are hours away from finding out where Connor Bredd goes. Mm-hmm. A 2023 draft with the lottery on tap. And then we've got just one game. So after a busy weekend, kind of a mix of excitement here.

We got the lottery and the Evanton Vegas game. One game, but the best game. The Oilers have become such a point in viewing for me, this postseason in particular, that I look at the schedule every morning. I'm like, oh, are they playing today? I'm excited about that. Otherwise, obviously, all the games have been fun and all that, but it's almost an entirely different energy.

And we'll talk more about that series in the second half today's show. I think we should start with Leaps Panthers. We saw game three last night, the Panthers winning it in overtime. And, you know, John, after both game one and two, I did shows either the next day or the day after. And I came on here with, I think, a generally positive outlook, despite the losses from a Leafs perspective, right? I felt like, I mean, especially as game two went along the second half of that game when they were pushing for the tying goal after being down three, two, it felt like they were getting to their spots in the offensive zone. they were getting the types of looks that they would ideally want. They just weren't converting, right?

But Brodsky was playing remarkably well. I think it had like a 945 or 950, save percentage to the first two games. They were missing on some of their shots. Like the top guys were getting scoring chances and just had no goals to show for it. And you had to think that despite the way that, you know, the runway was closing down on them because now they only needed two more losses for their season to end. If you were to trust the process, you'd say, okay, eventually this shooting talent is going to break through and score some goals.

And I got to say, you know, beyond the fact that they're down down three nothing, of course, and there's only one game left potentially in their season, it also feels different to me watching that game and how it played out. It just felt like as particular as it went on, the most troublesome part for me, I don't know if you agree with this, was that it felt like they sort of went back into a lot of the bad habits that had plagued them in previous post seasons. And that's the most alarming part, not that you get anything from moral victories when you lose in the postseason, but at least if you go down swinging and you're getting your

scoring chances and it's just not happening, there is something a little bit more prideful, I guess, in losing that way as opposed to how game three unfolded for them. Yeah, there's a whole lot of nothing from their stars in game three. And I'm totally on the same page as you as far as the first two games where you look at and you go, yeah, they're down to nothing. But if we're talking about who quote unquote deserve to win, it could have been one one. It could have been one. It could have 2-0 Toronto. And like no moral victories in the playoffs, whatever.

But they were sort of trending in the right direction and trending to win at least one of these last two games before Florida moves on. And they threw one away. They laid an egg in game three. And after six games,

they, sorry, after three games, their goal scores are Sam Lafferty, Eric Gustafson, Alex Kerfoot, Ryan O'Reilly, Matthew Nyes, who's now injured, and Michael Bunting. I don't see any... Those are all the players they're paying the most money, right? Well, exactly, right?

Like, it all sort of lines up on the cap sheet. The most concerning part for me, as far as, you know, big picture is nine games into the postseason. Toronto hasn't put forth an A-plus game. There hasn't been an A-minus. Other than game two against Tampa Bay, right? But it hadn't been in that. And they were coming off a loss, of course.

But still, like, they put the boot. to them in that game. Yeah, I guess you could say, okay, they had an A-minus, but it's mostly been Bs and C's and D's and E's and Fs and all that. It's been pretty rough. And one of my main takeaways from the start of the series is that Mitch Marner is making all these, I'll call them regular season plays with the puck, where what makes him such a special player is his anticipation is his puck skills is his ability to manipulate space and backtrack and drop passes and all that good stuff but there's a time and a place for that and there's been a handful of times in this series against florida where he's just made that regular season play versus

the playoff execution type play um especially in in at the start of game three i mean two giveaways near the goal line in the first 10 minutes. And it just escalated from there. I just couldn't believe the level of risk he had with the puck in game three. And like this is me sounding super old school, but it's just, it's the fact of the matter that the time and space is so limited in the playoffs. And especially against this four team, that's fantastic on the four check. Anthony Duclair, for example, in game three was just an absolute animal out there.

Well, and he started he started skating so much better. I thought, and understandably so when he came back from his Achilles injury, you know, halfway through the year or whatever, like he looked a step slow compared to what I used to remember from him moving up and down the ice. And it feels like as he's gotten more games under his belt, and I'm sure as he becomes more confident in that recovery and also just become healthier and more in shape, like he was a difference maker with his skating last night, which he hadn't really been previously. Yeah, it was the Anthony Duclair game in a lot of ways. and part of the reason why is because he was stripping a guy like Marner so deep in the zone. So, I mean, we could go through all the Leafs, big money players and pick it apart. I think other than Neelander, I think he's been good. The production hasn't quite been there, but like he's fourth out of the four top forwards

as far as deserving of blame here. So it is a lot of the sort of same old story, right, with this team in the playoffs at this point with that game three performance. Yeah, well, just quickly on the minor thing, and I want to talk more from a team level first before we get into some of the individual performances, but while we're on it, just before I forget, like, I think you're right in the sense that when you point out, like, you couldn't believe the risk in some of the decision making. But for me, I think the unacceptable part, like, when star players make turnovers or make mistakes because they're trying to do what they do best and like, my team needs me to create a goal right now. And so it tries, sometimes the puck bounces, we're, or it just doesn't go your way and that happens, right? But some of these mistakes were like almost the other way where, you know, it really did feel kind of like a deer in the headlights performance where he was holding on to the puck because he was, he didn't want to make a play.

And then when he would, it would be the absolute wrong one. Like it wasn't coming. It wasn't coming from a good place, if you know what I mean? Like it wasn't coming from a point of creation. It was coming from just being on your back foot and then just kind of making these whole plays, which as you mentioned in the regular season, that might be okay. But when you get to this point, it's a lot tougher to justify. Yeah, it's just, it's just been tough for, for Marner.

And like I said, like it's what makes him a Selkie candidate in a lot of ways. Like his anticipation, his ability to turn sort of a loose puck recovery into something special, going back the other way is just like it's right in his wheelhouse. But there just comes a time in a series. in a playoff run when you have to ice the puck or just chip it out or whatever the case may be. And again, sounding super old school here, but it's just the fact of the matter that you need to limit that risk in your own zone. Yes, but at the same time, the stretch that I highlighted here was the overtime.

And it lasted only three minutes, of course, right? It was very similar in how it played out to the game seven overtime with Panthers Bruins, where it looked like two teams trying to accomplish wildly different things. things and the result reflected that. If you go back through the sequence, this is what the plays that the Leafs made in those three minutes. Brody makes a defensive zone turnover against the forecheck, right? Nothing really comes from it,

but then when the puck comes to Ryan O'Reilly, he's kind of tired from having a chase and spend time in his own zone. So he just half-heartedly dumps it out into the neutral zone. The Panthers swing it right back in. Sam Bennett gets a scoring chance. I don't think he wound up getting a shot off on it, but he drove it to the net and it was like a threatening opportunity. then Kerrfoot ices it.

After that, they dump it out, dump it in, comes back in their zone right away, Luke Shen icing. Then Morgan Riley on the ensuing face off, defensive zone turnover. They eventually win it back, Luke Shen icing again. Then they finally, Matthew's line gets on the ice. He dumps the puck in twice at the offensive zone blue line. And then it comes back the other way and the Panthers score off of that. And I think that you mentioned like sometimes you have to make that kind of quote unquote safe play to live to fight another day.

But coming into that overtime, that's not the way I think you can play, and especially the way this Leafs team needs to play. And I think that's a disappointing part for me where all those plays I just listed really do go against the ethos of the team or kind of the way they were constructed initially, I guess, the vision they had.

They didn't wind up having the postseason success to reflect it. But man, they've been a good regular season team that's won a lot of games over the past couple years, right? And they accomplished that by playing a certain type of way and this was not it. And so that was the disappointing part for me where it was just like every single play was just a poor decision with a very low ceiling. And eventually it was like a death by a thousand cuts in a way. Well, and on that OT goal, Florida's scoring it basically on a three on five. They have their three forwards in the zone and Toronto has everyone back.

Like, it's not like someone's floating out there in the neutral zone, but they were just so passive, allowing Reinhardt to make that entry when there's three guys within a few feet, and then they just all puck watched until the goals scored. And I want to give Florida credit a little bit here, though. Yeah, big time. So, first of all, Aaron Eckblad, he made the stretch pass on both of Duke Claire and Reinhardt's goals in game three.

And it's one of those things where you don't notice until you kind of circle back, and you're like, who made that pass? And oh, Eckblad's all over it. So I'll give him credit there. And then also the overtime goal in game three, it was pretty similar to the two one goal in game two, where Reinhardt gets the primary assist in game two on the Lundell goal,

and then it's sort of reversed in game three. And, you know, they both involve a dump, a dump in. The second one was, was, rimmed. But there's sort of that. That one was a calculated dump-in, right? Like he was trying to pass that to Lundell. It wasn't the dump-ins that you hate where it's like, I'm just going to kind of,

with no plan, dump this in and then now we're going to chase after it. Like, that was more of a pass to me. But yeah. Yeah. And then Lundell grabs a puck and the pressure from Kerfoot was non-existent. And both of those goals, again, the 2-1 goal in game 2 and the overtime 3-2 goal in game three both include sort of quick action plays where the puck's coming from behind the net to someone in the crease area who's being untouched. And, you know, in game three, that's a

wrap-around. In game two, that's just a straight-up shot from Lundell. And they were both straight-line hockey plays, like kind of very repeatable plays, if you will. I'd call it a gritty goal in the modern NHL on both accounts. And like the first one in game two, I felt like it was it was more kind of Florida schooling the Leafs as far as, you know, the pressure and the forecheck and intercepting a pass that Liligran tried to make to his to his teammate, to his partner. But the overtime goal in game three, I thought that was a lot of Toronto being passive, of a lot of Toronto allowing that to happen

versus Florida flourishing. So it sort of comes back to what you were saying where those three minutes in overtime were a comedy of errors for the Leafs. Yeah, it was a real like encapsulation or embodiment of where the performance sort of went wrong. You're right. I mean, on that play, like no one touches Ryan Hart

despite a lot of guys, I guess I was going to say in blue sweaters, but I guess they were wearing their whites in game three. being near him and around him and having the numbers advantage. And it was a lot of sort of flybys. And, you know, the performance of T.J. Brody and Jake McKay pair in particular

has been interesting to me this postseason because I haven't, I don't really recall seeing Brody play this orally in a long time. I mean, I'm not sure if he's hurt or not. But like his indecision on a lot of these plays has really stood out. And you can kind of see it in that play where, Reinhardt's plan of like how quickly he wanted to attack combined with Brody sort of like tentatively going in there and not picking him up and then just getting beaten quite frankly one on one,

right? Like that really shined, especially when you compare it to his defense partner, McCabe there, who has been so wildly aggressive, right? And I think that was part of the appeal like, oh, he's a big hitter. This is going to help us in the postseason. And there's been a number of times I've noticed where he's sort of taking himself out of position because he's trying to play that role and he's going for the big hit. And so the combination of those two in terms of like the overaggressiveness and then the

underaggressiveness has been bizarre. And maybe it's related, right? Maybe one's trying to make up for the other or the fact that his partner is being so aggressive is kind of throwing Brody off as well. But for whatever reason, it's really stood out watching them just the way they've chosen to kind of go about a lot of these plays in their own zone. Yeah, the Brody issue goes back to the start of the Lightning series. uncharacteristically been a little sloppy.

Like he's always been the guy, the fixer on Toronto's back end. You know, oh, this guy's coming off an injury, throw him on Brody's pairing, or this guy just got traded to the leaves. Like, he needs to adjust, throw him on Brody's pair. He's kind of that stabilizer. And I don't know, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt

that he's hurt because it's just so uncharacteristic. But still, it doesn't change the results here where even on that, to declare goal, him and Hall are on the ice. McCabe and Hall. Sorry, this is McCabe and Hall. I'm getting Brody McCabe mixed up. But, you know, they're both not playing well. And, you know, one of those guys has to take the middle of the ice there.

Like, Declare just parts the seas and is off to the races. And it's just been a sloppy performance in that sense from the Leafs in terms of allowing these entries that turn into these incredible rush chances. And, you know, Samsonov was playing really well until he got hurt. So it's a little unfortunate in that sense. And then Joseph Wall played about as well as you could ask, right? For a rookie who's cold and who has very little NHL experience. Yeah, I mean, the three goals are being.

I don't fault them. I don't fault them for really any of those goals. Yeah. It was a beautiful move off a breakaway. And then he stopped, Claire on a ensuing breakaway, one off of Carter Hage's butt cheeks. And then that wrap around, right? Like, that's, that's pretty, pretty tough.

I mean, I'm with you, though. I think let's, let's frame this from, from crediting the Panthers because there's a few points I want to make here. One, on that play for all the talk about the flybys and how it's unacceptable to get beaten one on three and then three verse five or whatever. Like, that was a 200 IQ big brain play by Sam Ryanhart. I mean, first catching the lob from Ekblad. then buying himself time by regrouping quickly with a little quick turn,

and then maneuvering through three guys to get it into the zone, angling that pass to Lundell, and then noticing that Brody could be had there, and then going right after very decisively. If any of those things doesn't happen, that goal probably does not happen in that way, right? Like in the sense that if Ryan Hart is a bit slower to attacking behind the net there,

maybe someone can come by and sort of, you know, prevent that easy, easy wraparound. And so credit to him. And what, in reflecting on that, I mean, the combination of him, Lundell and I too Lus de Rhinan has been phenomenal, right? And I two two in particular, to me, because I think the two guys are sort of bigger household names or have better reputations. He's really stood out to me in this series and in this postseason in general of like, he is just all over it, man.

Like he is winning every single battle. It seems like he's just such a nightmare to play against. He's just in everyone's back pocket, just constantly bugging them and winning extra possessions for the Panthers. And so I wanted to give him a little bit of love. And then Reinhardt, in that trade that came over to Florida, it's about as big of a win-win as you can have, right? Like I was initially underwhelmed in the return, and then the Sabres turned that into

one of, if not the best goalie prospects in the world. And Yuri Kulich, who has 46 points in 62 HL games as an 18-year-old this season and is going to be clearly a big part of their future. while Reinhardt is having just a fantastic postseason for the Panthers. And so it was quite a trade. But I wanted to give Reinhardt in particular credit because I feel like he's so crafty and nifty and maneuvering around the offensive zone in these games and just doesn't get the credit he deserves for it. Yeah, he is crazy underlying numbers too if you look back on the regular season.

I know some people consider them for their Selke ballot. And on the topic of sort of glowups for the Panthers, how about Carter Verhege? I'll put this to you, Dim, like, put Tage Thompson aside. Is there anyone that's had a better two-year glow-up than for Hagee? I mean, he scored 42 goals in the regular season. Six of his 12 career playoff goals are game winners. Like, he's such a master at finding those little pockets in the offensive zone and just making the opponent pay. There no one else came to mind.

I'm sure there are other candidates. But behind Tage, it seems like for Hage, he's like right there in terms of guy who is so under the radar as a, as floating around the league, okay, is he ever going to make it? And then boom, just took off. Yeah, he's so fun to watch too. Like when he gets going. I mean, what a skater. You know, I mentioned at the start that was the first five to ten minutes of the game.

It felt like the Leafs had made a very concerted point of adjusting to some of the issues they'd had in the first two games. Right? And I thought the broadcast actually did a really good job of hammering this point home of they were clearly sort of by design sending a winger deep. when they were in their own zone to kind of get behind the Panthers blue line or defensemen and take advantage of their overaggressiveness. And so if you were able to complete one of those stretch passes, you'd basically essentially just have a walk-in two-on-one with a trailer joining, right? And so how many, in the start of the game, like they had at least four or five, I think,

either two-on-ones or three-on-twos that were really sort of quickly and shrewdly capitalizing on some of the mistakes the Panthers were making in terms of their over-aggression. And so that was very encouraging and that quickly dried up, right? I think they had another one maybe in the second period off of a faceoff with with their fourth line. But for the most part, the Panthers really tightened it up after that. And credit to them, I thought they played very disciplined and they played the way, exactly the way they want to play. I had the scoring chances at 15 to 9 for them at 5-15 in that game. And most of those were at the start of the game for the Leafs.

Natural Statrick had the Leafs that just 2.5 expected goals for the game, which is well below what they did in the first two. And, you know, the penalties were two nothing for the Panthers. The Leaves didn't have a single power play in this game we should mention. And I don't think that's very wrong. Like, I'm sure the Panthers, if you go back and rewatch every single play, probably committed one or two. But it felt like in the third period, if anything,

because the Panthers had already had that two advantage in because it was a tie game, the referees went into full game management mode, right? And I felt like there were actually a few where the Leaves probably could have been called for additional penalties. And the refs were like, no, let's let these guys play. And that's obviously very frustrating, but tough to quibble with considering they didn't get a single power play themselves. But I just wanted to know, like, if that's being used in excuse, I just, I'm not buying that for a second either. Yeah, there was a hook by Gustafson and the third near the Panthers blue line where it's like, oh, he's about to be called.

And then it's like, no, nothing. The whistles have been put away. Yeah, let the boys play, right? Yeah. And like, you know, like you said, like if you go through every shift, it's like, okay, maybe there's a penalty there. But in terms of egregious misses, I didn't really see any. So one, game management is a whole can of worms that we probably don't want to open. But props for Florida for not taking a single penalty.

This is a team that had the most minors in the regular season, most minors in the first round. And in a game three where theoretically the Leafs got to really taking it to them on the power play, they just didn't give them any chances. And now the Leaf's power play is one for 11 in the past five games. obviously the third game they had no chances, but like it's now kind of a story that that they just, one, aren't getting the opportunities and two, they haven't capitalized going back to game four of the first round. Yeah, I will say though.

I mean, and this is why it's so imperative for the Panthers to stay out of the box, even on the ones they didn't score in the first couple games. Like I thought they were getting some really, really high quality works, right? Like, and so, but yeah, no, you're right. I mean, and, you know, let's talk a little bit about the individual performance of the top guys then for the Leafs because that's obviously coming out of this going to be a big topic of discussion. And, you know, I think it's important that the guys get lumped together, the quote,

a goal core four and like the highest paid players in the team. I think it's very important, especially from game three, but maybe even going back to earlier games in this series to not lump them together because I think my mileage on how they've performed or how much they've been able to create or how aggressively we they've played is, is quite different for some of the names. And so, you know, in Matthews in this game, first shift, he gets that rush chance. off one of those two-on-ones we mentioned hits the post. In the third period, he had a really, like, great A look off of a kind of like a cycle

play coming from behind the net. But for the most part, not much going for him offensively in this game. I thought he was very active and noticeable defensively, which is great. And that's part of the appeal of Austin Matthews, the player. But obviously, when he has zero goals in this series so far in these three games, that's not going to, that's not as much of a silver lining, I think, for people. but what I did notice in this game and I mentioned is and I'm not sure how much of this is chicken or the egg for him

but when he is attacking the middle lane and carrying the puck into the zone compared to when he's dumping it in like he did in this game it's it's night and day for me in terms of like how dangerous he is as a player and that's sort of I guess kind of like obvious or intuitive but it just really feels like and I'm not sure how much of reflection of how he's feeling about his own game and confidence or the way he's being defended or whatnot

But in this game, he had a one-on-one with Mark Stahl coming into the zone, and he just, like, chose to dump it in. And they wound up retrieving the possession. But then what happens is you just get kind of like a weak point shot from that as opposed to actually some sort of a grade A rush chance. And I don't know, I forget the specific timestamp of it, but that play really stood out to me where I was like, man, this needs to be something more ambitious than what just happened. And I think that was a big problem for them offensively in this game.

And Matthews was responsible. for quite a few of those. Yeah, I've always thought watching Matthews, you know he's humming when he's just marching through the neutral zone. There's that sort of like long strides are powerful. He's stick handling his jersey flapping in the wind. Didn't see a lot of that

in game three. And you mentioned Mark Stahl, like a side plot to this series has been how the Leafs have not exposed them much. I know that Bunting scored against him, I believe in game two, maybe game one. But aside from that, it's like

here's a guy who you should be able to exploit whether it's off speed or just, you know, east-west passing and it just hasn't been there. And on the forward front, Dalfi, I think you would probably agree is the worst player in the series. I don't know. He seems like kind of just an HLer and they haven't been able to expose him in any great way either. And I realize he doesn't get a ton of time out there, but those are two guys I circle where I'm like, I'm pretty sure every player on the Leafs are better. than these two guys.

And that just, it just hasn't been the case as far as results in that aspect. So with Matthews, I mean, he was down for 73% of expected goals through game two at five on five. And, you know, again,

you want the production. You don't care about necessarily the process at the end of the day. But that led me to believe that he was going to really break through in game three. And it just, it just never came. Here's a weird thing. I'm sure you've noticed it, but Robovsky's made two saves now where he jumps at Matthews

while he shot from the slot. And I have no idea if that's a pre-scout thing where he's like, you know, when Matthews does his catch and release, he shoots a certain spot and he just needs to be there. But it's so weird. I think it was game one and then definitely in game three where Robowski literally jumped at a Matthew shot it with his shoulder and his glove hand.

I don't think that's a very technical move. I think that's a little freelancing on Bob Cobb's part. No, first off, how dare you? Zach Dalpe, former Canucks legend, great guy, has been good in this year. I'm sure he's a great guy. I'm sure he's great. Yeah, what a career. Go on his elite prospects page, quite a few stops throughout his career.

So it's cool. And he's quite some big goals in this postseason for them. But on the Marksdall front, I mean, he's played 70 minutes in this series, basically, and the Panthers are up four or two in that time. And you're right, like, you've got to be kicking yourself for not finding ways to isolate and expose him because he looks like he can't skate and chew gum at the same time. And somehow they're just letting him off the hook. You know, for me,

Sheldon Keith gets a lot of blame and every coach does when their team's losing like this. I will say amongst the top of the list of things that I think he's done wrong is in the past two games, William Nealander and Austin Matthews have played one minute and 59 seconds together at 5 on 5. And especially when we mentioned how we thought Marner played in game three, not finding a way to switch that up.

and play your best pot carrier with your most threatening shooter in the offensive zone to try to make his life easier and get him some more grade A looks is unacceptable, in my opinion. And I saw someone posted a meme of, you know, like the millhouse gif of him playing frisbee by himself and he's just like throws it in one direction. Then he runs after it, picks it up, throws it back where he came from and he keeps chasing after it playing by himself. That really has been Willie Neander in this series where he's just buzzing around.

and retrieving the puck every single time. And then he's playing with like Kelly Yarncrook and guys that just can't benefit from it. And so what winds up happening is he just passes it up to the point. And then a leafs defenseman just shoots it right into the shin pad of a panther's defender. And then the puck leaves his own. And then it's like, all right, well, that was kind of a waste. And so to not put those two guys together, especially considering how some of the other players were playing, was a big whiff on my part.

And I think that's something they desperately need to do a game for. if they're going to create some more offense. Yeah, I think that's fair. And on the Nealander front, he draws three defenders to him before that Gustafson goal in game three. And obviously, Gustafson just kind of threw it out the net. It hit a Panther and went in. Like it wasn't necessarily this finesse play by Gustafson.

But that really, like, underlines your point where, could you imagine if that was Matthews getting that type of pass multiple times a game? Because Neelander's got that magnetic ability to him where he's so dynamic on the, on the perimeter that he can, he can really make things happen. And yeah, I mean, the thing with Keith is that he loves juggling his lines, right? This is like, that's one of the, the main tenants, if you will, of his, of his coaching.

But it is curious that in, in game three, he did not put Nylander and Matthews together much. Yeah. I mean, when, when Nylander jumps over the boards and gets the puck in the neutral zone and is moving downhill, it's just an entirely different level of anticipation to anything else that's happening. in these games when the Leaves get the puck, right? And so I think finding a way to capitalize on that would be, we would think, a priority. And, you know, one final, no credit to the Panthers, I will say about,

they've defended really well in front of their own net in this series. Like, if you think back to round one, we made such a big deal of how much traffic the Leafs were generating in front of Andre Basilevsky and how they were able to tip a lot of pucks and, you know, jump on rebounds and we're just creating chaos in front of them and making his life a nightmare. There hasn't really been much of that in this series, right? maybe early on, but in game three, I can't even really remember a single sort of rebound that

they were able to jump on and at least get a follow-up opportunity on. And Bobrovsky was giving up a few of them early in the game before he settled in. And the Panthers were just quicker to the puckson and boxing them out. And I think they deserve a lot of credit for that because that's a big difference in sort of why they're up in this series compared to what happened in round one for the lightning. 100%. And those first two games, Robowski deserved a ton of credit. But there was that, lack of net front presence from the Leafs where they're getting these great A opportunities but it's kind of goalie versus shooter right not enough screening not enough kind of tip threats deflection tip or threats I should say

and like you said it didn't it didn't change in game three still an issue yeah okay let's take a break here and then when we come back we will we'll jump over to some of the other series that we want to highlight so looking forward to that in the meantime, here's our break. You're listening to the HockeyPedio cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. Your number one spot for Flames coverage can be found on Flames Talk with me, Pat Steinberg. Exclusive interviews, trusted insiders, and the latest news. Listen live weekday afternoons and four or stream the Flames Talk podcast on demand. All right, we're back on the Hockeystio cast, joined by John Mattis. John, let's do Devils Hurricanes. An interesting series from the sense that the devils just seem very committed to this bit of just play.

playing games where they're either up 5-1 or down 5-1 with no in between. They played the two close games in games three and four in New York, but for the most part, otherwise, it's been just the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, both in terms of scoreline and like the, like, it's been fair, right? There hasn't been a lot of instances. It's like, oh, man, they deserved better in this one. They just gave up a few bad goals. It's like when they've lost, they've been outplayed pretty handily.

And when they've won, they've just put the clamps on their opponents. I know they gave up four goals in this game three of them were short-handed goals by the hurricanes. I thought otherwise it was still a pretty dominant performance by the devil is all things considered. I'm kind of curious for what you think is the biggest takeaway from this series so far, whether it's most recently after game three or whether it's the kind of the totality of how these three have played out so far. Well, it's hard not to focus on the key battleground here, which I think is the rush defense. of Carolina. In games one and two, New Jersey combined for 22 high danger attempts.

And then in game three, they had 22 again. So they did pretty well in game three, kind of doubling their original output. And I just think that's the story of the series so far. I mean, when Carolina is on, I mean, the board battles, they're going to win those, the gap control, it's going to be better than the other team. Their physicality is very functional. Like they're not running around chasing guys down. They're running around and getting the puck back by being physical.

They insulate their goalies better than any team in the league. And they play with pace. So the first two games, it was like so lopsided just because New Jersey had zero room off the rush. They had zero ways of generating high danger chances like, especially Jack Hughes, like him getting to the inner slot was impossible. And you saw him get frustrated. You know,

he's banging his stick on the boards after Jordan Stahl scores that goal in game two. On the breakaway, he's on the ice for four goals against and zero four in the first two games. And I was thinking, like, if the devils don't,

like, basically have the performance that they have in game three, they're done. Like, if Carolina continues, playing this way and even if they lose in game three I just think it's game over real quick but game three kind of changed things in terms of

okay New Jersey's got life like they they broke through that defensive shell of Carolina at least for one game yeah it's when such a fascinating matchup it's a it's a real and a lot of playoff series are this way but this one is a great encapsulation of that of like which team is going to be able to to have the game played in their preferred environment and you're right to build off the point you made in this game,

I had the rush shots at 5-1-5, 20 to 8 in favor of the devils, which is exactly the way that they want to play, right? And I think, like, let's give Luke Hughes a little bit of credit here because I think, you know, he played whatever, 13 minutes at 5-15, he made a few mistakes on the power play. But even strength, I thought he brought to the table exactly what they could have hoped for. It was like a best case scenario and a big reason why I think people like myself were clamoring for him to enter this lineup during various points that this team struggled throughout these first handful of games.

And, you know, the shift that he had that led to the Damon Severson goal where he's going to moving down the offensive zone, extending the play, keeping the play alive is like the highlight play. But there were at least I can remember five or six plays, if not more, where he went deep in his own zone, retrieve the puck and then made like a simple little play, which wasn't even necessarily a full breakout out of the zone, but alleviated the pressure to the point where either the forward he passed to or his partner could then make the following play that either skated out or not. And that helping to fuel the territorial battle is such a key. I think it's a big part of why the devils were able to attack more off the rush. And for all the talk about how the hurricanes like forecheck and cycle, what makes them so effective is especially at the time,

against a team like the devils, even if they don't get a chance, you know, I constantly talk about how they just like litter pulling shots, right? Even they don't get a chance or score, if they're spending 90 seconds at a time, just keeping you pinned in your own zone if you're the devils, that's a huge win for Carolina, right? Because that's basically completely grounding their rush game.

It's putting them in that type of environment they don't want to be in. And that's what stood out in game three. Like the devil's attacking off the rush was great. Well, there were very few times while the score was competitive. where the hurricanes had those shifts in the offensive zone, right? And so that's a huge win for the devils. And I think the way they handled that forjack and the way they broke the puck out is a case and point of that. Yeah, I mean, game three, it was, it was New Jersey's forwards getting behind Carolina's defensemen versus the opposite in the previous two games.

And, you know, you really saw New Jersey skating jump off the page. The desperation was just so apparent. I don't know if that's the best. way to put it or not, but like they were throwing everything at Carolina. And I also, I don't know if you caught this, Dimitri, but when Jordan Stahl scored to make it seven three, he had this hilarious facial expression where he was almost like disgusted. He looked up at the score and he's like, he didn't even celebrate. He was just like, oh, like it's still seven three after that goal. And I thought that some things up pretty well because let's face it, like this Carolina team

is just Rod Brindamore like through and through and Brindamore wasn't happy after the game Jordan Stahl is kind of his I don't know, his embodiment as a player nowadays he's the guy who stirs the drink in terms of culture and way to play and I just thought that was great

because it also shows you like game four is going to be a battle and this Carolina team that is missing three key scores look like it was going to run away with the series. But maybe the lack of depth was scoring, I should say lack of top end finishing,

maybe it comes back to haunt them. We'll see. Like they kind of got this nice head start with that 2-0 lead. And then, you know, if it ends up being 2-2, I mean, look out. The devils are going to be in the driver's seat, in my opinion. Well, when you mentioned the key battleground, I thought you were going to highlight the Jordan Stalb or Jack Hughes matchup

because it really reflects how this series played out. far, not surprisingly, to anyone that's been following Carolina Hurricanes hockey in the postseason over the past couple years, but games one and two, Jordan Stalls out on the ice for 925 against Jack Hughes, game two, 1046, and game three, just 3, 40. And so far in this series, when those two guys are out head to head, the hurricanes are up to nothing, and most importantly, they're out shooting them 11 to 11 to 4 at 5 on 5, right? Now in game three, the Devils finally with last change, get out of that matchup, get Jack Hughes on the ice. And particularly because they went with that 11 and 7, right, they were able to kind of creatively get Hughes on the ice and jam in additional shifts for him early in the game.

When Saul wasn't on the ice at 5-on-5, the Devils were up 4-1 in Jack Hughes's minutes. And he had all four points, he had four points on every single one of those goals. Shots 10-5. And so that's to me the big difference here. And you got to feel good about that heading into game four in the ability to replicate it. He is their offensive engine. And if he is producing and creating the way he did in game three, they're an entirely different team. Now, Carolina does have home ice advantage in this series.

And they'll have to find a way to win one of those games if they want to advance. And so that'll become trickier. But that's like it really kind of everything starts and ends with that matchup and finding a way to let him sort of shake free. because you're right in the first two games, very frustrated. And it's just a difficult matchup for him in sort of the difference in physicality between the two. Yeah, I think it's like Jordan Stahl's five inches taller, like 45 pounds heavier. Like the physical difference is apparent there. And we talked about it when we did the all-star teams, Dimitri, like whatever, three weeks ago,

about how Jack Hughes is such a driver of New Jersey's offense. he's both arguably the best playmaker and best shooter. And the way that we sort of came to that conclusion was he ranked top 10 in the league in both slot shots and slot passes per game. So he's just, when he's going, New Jersey's offense is usually going. I think we certainly saw that in game three. One thing I wanted to throw at you, before game three, so first two games and including the first round, there were 16 players with 3.5 individual expected goals generated. So not on ice, just, you know, what this player is generating.

So 3.5, there were 16 players. 14 of the 16 had at least two goals. The high mark was seven. The other two players was, it was Nico Heeshire and Timo Meyer. So they had zero goals on 3.5 expected goals are greater. I think Heeshire was actually leaving the whole playoffs. So that, like that just really jumped out at me when I was looking into the statistics I had of game three where it's like, these guys are seriously snake bitten and similar to what,

what's going on with the Leafs and their stars. Like it's possible that it never comes. It's possible you keep trying. And it just, the goals don't come. But they came for them in game three. Well, Nico Heeshire is a certified badass. And this is, I mean, he's given us a lot of evidence for why that's the case. But after game two, he gives this quote where he says,

what bothers me most is that we just got out battled. It's the playoffs we should be pissed right now. And he's their captain. And in game three, he comes out, he scores the goal, game high nine shot attempts. I had him down for five scoring chances of his own and he set two others up. While he was on the ice, high danger chances were 10 to 1 at 5 on 5 for the devils

and they had 88.5% of the expected goals. If that isn't leading by example, and, you know, he didn't have the four points to Jack, Hughes had and Jack Hughes is their offensive engine. But Nico Hishir is their most important player in terms of controlling the game flow in that sense. And man, he was, he did pretty much everything that you could hope for in game three. And that was a statement performance to me, right?

Absolutely. Also, we got to give some love to Mikey McLeod. He's looked so good in this playoffs. Well, he's on my I, too, Lucerne and All-Stars. The undercover All-Stars of the playoffs? Yeah. Yeah, he's quickly becoming a problem with a capital A and capital P. Like that speed, the range he has with how tall and sort of the wingspan there.

And he's got some dangles. Like his goals have been like just kind of waiting the goalie out. I just wanted to shout out what he's done so far. Because even in games one and two, he was like the one devil that was able to penetrate and get to the crease area and generate like real offense. The other guys, you know, I don't know, maybe he sure did too. but by and large, they were pretty shut out. And that says a lot about a guy who's technically a fourth liner right now.

I mentioned this on a reason show. The undercover story of this postseason is the shot for shot that the McLeod brothers are going for right now where they're like, they're somehow staggered so they're playing on alternating nights. And then one night, I'm like, oh, yeah, Ryan is definitely the better player. And then all of a sudden, Mikey McLeod does something like this. And I'm like, all right, maybe I need to revisit this. And then I'll watch Ryan McLeod and I'll be like, yep, no, he's really, really good. And then Mikey McLeod comes back.

And so it's been fun to watch. Both guys have been fantastic in their roles. Speaking of the Oilers, then, let's, are you, we're good with Devils Hurricanes? You think we, we kind of hit all the big points there? Yeah, yeah, we're good. Yeah. So I guess the theme here is how star players have responded, not, I don't know, say, to adversity, but to their teams needing a big win, right?

And so in game one, the Oilers lose and not only they lose, I know it was a one goal game there until the empty netter, but they were quite outplayed in terms of especially off the rush, the Golden Knights were just able to have free reign to get whatever they wanted. And they were unhappy with their performance. And in game two, you mentioned desperation for the Devils. I think urgency maybe is a better way to put it. In the first three and a half minutes of Game 2 of Oilers Golden Knights, scoring chances were 8-0 for Edmonton.

And after the first period, it was 17 to 3 for them, which kind of like reflected the shock clock as well. And they came out and right, I think it was their first or second shift, right? Get two scoring chances. McDavid brings it in. Dreis Heidel gets one, then nearly knocks in the rebound. They draw a penalty on that score and the in-swing power play. And it would just kind of lift off from there.

And so it was really cool seeing them sort of take control of that. And this idea of your best players stepping up in the biggest moments is like the most interesting part of the postseason to me from a storytelling perspective. And so just seeing that play out the way it did and that response from them was awesome. and it was exactly what you should expect based on what we know from those two guys. But man, just seeing them do everything they wanted to do right out of the gate was a really cool visual. One, it's been mind-blowing how Leonhard Isidal has not tailed off. Like I thought, okay, after the first round, he'll come back down to Earth a little bit.

Obviously, he'll pitch in, but not go on this, this just ridiculous run here. He's up to 13 goals and eight games. He's only six away from tying the all-time record. And I always find a hilarious when a guy like Newsy Lalund is brought up. And like that's always an alarm in my head. Like this is something special because Newsy Lalonde destroyed the original six 100 years ago. So if you're doing stuff that he did, like you're doing something right. And he's, I think, three or four goals away from Lalun's best performance in the playoffs.

But yeah, I mean, Dries title's one-timer right now is solving the Golden Knights goalies. like it's going out of style and you can go back to the first round on that too. He seems to shoot most of them on in one leg, which is interesting. I wonder how much the past threat is, is, I guess, causing all these goals or helping him bury these goals where this guy is one of the best playmakers in the league, one of the best passes in the league. And it's not like he isn't passing anymore, but he certainly seems to be going against the green a little bit with the amount of attempt.

and shots and individual chances. And I don't know. One thing, I look back at all the goals that he scored in the playoffs before we hopped on. And one thing that jumped out at me was that he always seems to be between the opponent and the puck deep in the ozone. Like, I know it's a very simple thing. I know a lot of goal scores do that. But this playoffs, like especially, he's been wide open for a lot of these goals.

He has. And, you know, the bat angle goals are, I think, an interesting point to make here. because he scored the one in game one, right? It was just an absolutely ruthless shot off of, uh, off of Lauren Breswa kind of just chipping it in off of an embarrassing him in that way. And then McDavid scored one. I think it was the fifth goal of the game, right?

Kind of from a similar spot on the ice on the power play, it was a bad angle and it looks bad on Brasua. Um, what I'll say to that though is, and, you know, shout out to Kevin Woodley here, who's really open my eyes to this. If you go back and watch those plays, you can tell that the goalie is worried, about the backdoor pass, right?

And even on the McDavid one, you can see Dreisidel is be lining down the, down the weak side. And they put so much tape out there of just threading that that little quick tap-in goal that as a goalie, I don't know how you cannot be at least accounting for that. And so it's much tougher to just sort of stand up

and hug the post and prevent that puck being chipped in off of you when you're worried about that play. And so that's how these guys are able to sort of execute those and take advantage of it. And it's a testament to the dual threat nature, right? Like you're mentioning that. I think, Dr.

I said it was one of the best two or three shooters and one of the best two or three passers in the world. And he might not be two or three in one of those categories, right? Like he's just such a weapon offensively. And so the one-timer, totally on point there. You can't really throw him a bad pass because he can just go on that one knee and from anywhere on the ice, leverage it into a great A chance. And so, yeah, it's been, I mean, he's been fantastic. And really cool seeing the two of them just dominate that way.

And it's a very scary thing for the Golden Knights because the power play, which is operating at like 60% or whatever this postseason, is not only the turns in the sense that it puts pressure on you to not take down penalties and not get carried away and go over the line, but also it decreases your margin for errors so much. Like if you're the Golden Knights, you can play a phenomenal game. And if you make one mistake within the next 30 seconds to a minute, it's in the back of your net, and it basically negated everything you just worked so hard for, right?

And so that must be such a tough thing, both physically and mentally, to navigate over the course of a 60-minute game. Yeah, and I'm finding it almost difficult to rob my head around. Not only dry sidles playoff so far, he's now up to 17 points on 34 Oilers' goals, so 50% of Oilers' goals, which is wild. But also the power play, like, they're still humming at 60%. That's wild. Like we're almost like taking it for granted at this point because, you know, we've been talking about it for a while. They had this historic regular season. But you're totally right.

Like Vegas is, they got to be shaking in their boots if they ever take a penalty. Six times out of 10, that's, that's tough to really, you know, kind of. And you know what? I'll go Vegas credit. Like they're under Bruce Cassidy, white disciplined. So, you know, not the worst matchup as far as that, but yeah, but you can see as as as game two went along and part of this might just be because it was a blowout. But like, I think they, they want to try to rough it up a little bit, especially after whistles. And that's where there's a very fine line where if you go too far, all of a sudden.

And that's why I say it's kind of like a it's a deterrent, right? Or a form of toughness for the oilers. They don't they don't need to respond because their response is going to be just scoring on you immediately. So I don't know, it's kind of tough to deal. Almost like one of those, your best defense is your offense. Exactly. It's kind of like that. Like, if you're Vegas, you're terrified of going on the PK.

Okay. John, that's all the time we have for today. That was a fun one. I'm glad we got to kind of balance around and talk about all three of those series. Didn't really get a chance to talk about Dallas, Seattle, but I'm sure we'll do so later this week. I'll let you plug some stuff on the way out, let the listeners know where they can find you and also kind of what you've got in the works as we move ahead with Round 2.

Yeah, so with some colleagues, I'm working on a mock draft tonight with the draft lottery dropping. So check out the score app or the score.com tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning would be Tuesday. And then I'm on Twitter at Mattis John, M-A-T-I-S-E-S-E-H-N, and otherwise covering the playoffs, analyzing a lot of Leafs and Devils and those two series mostly right now. I'll flip over to the west to start next round. But yeah, thanks for having me on, Dem. Awesome, man.

Pleasure, as always. Happy draft lottery night to those to celebrate. We will be back tomorrow with another episode. I'm going to actually having a laboratory, Cam Robinson on, and we're going to talk about the lottery results and kind of some of the most interesting takeaways and fallouts from that. So looking forward to that. In the meantime, thank you, everyone, for listening to us.

And we'll be back tomorrow with another episode of the HockeyOcast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.