The Hockey PDOcast - Stanley Cup Criteria, Most Fun Players, and What We're Watching

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Matt Larkin to answer your listeners questions about criteria for Stanley Cup winners, the Islanders goaltending situation, players with the best vibes, and what to watch for as we enter the final week of the regular season. 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.

progressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey-O-Cast. My name is Dimitri Philopovich. And joining me to close out the week with another mailbag is my good buddy, Matt Lark, and Matt, what's going on in? Dmitri, thank you for bringing me in as your closer. It feels like, I don't know why I'm starting out with baseball analogies.

Maybe it's because the blue days are back. But I feel like I'm coming in to help you close it out in the ninth. So I appreciate it. Well, hopefully you're warmed up and you're going to bring the high heat and put this away, put this week away. So it should be fun. We've got some fun mailbag questions. I sent them over to you in preparation for this. And we're going to see how many we can work through here today on this lovely Friday.

So here's the first one from Craig. Heading into game 83, would you rather have a top five power play or a top five penalty kill? Now, I obviously think this is an interesting kind of thought-provoking exercise regardless, but I purposely pick this one first to help tee up a conversation that you and I can have about your awesome series over on Daily Faceoff where you used the history of recent Cup champions to help kind of construct an ingredients list for what shared attributes or traits those teams had the one of winning it all. And so one of those ingredients was special teams and kind of the relevance of it or importance of it and how that's kind of been changing over time. And you answer this a little bit with the power of play versus penalty kill component of it as well. So I'll give you the floor here. How do you feel about this?

We can kind of talk about the exercise as a whole, but also specifically this question from Craig about which one is more important for playoff success. For sure. And it's a great question, Craig. I'll give a little bit of context in case you're not familiar with the series. But I did, as Dimitri said, I compiled a list of Stanley Cup ingredients. So I've been working on this. I've been doing it for three years at daily faceoff. And I examined lots of different trends.

traits about championship teams, and it's always the 10-year sample. So whatever year I'm doing it, it's the previous 10 years. And I tried to find which of the sort of cliches that people talk about are true, which are not. So there are some that are not. There's not a correlation with having a workhorse number one defenseman, for example. That surprised me. Same with going with having an extreme center depth. But there were seven traits that I consistently identified. and one of them, of course, was a strong penalty kill, but it is shifting. And it sounds funny that I have this list, but it's changing. But that's what happens when you're shifting the 10-year sample by a year each time you do the exercise.

So I am noticing a change. It previously was you needed a really strong penalty kill. That was the correlation. So think Tampa Bay Lightning. They were one of the most undisciplined teams in the league. So they bring in Barkley-Ga-Dreau and Blake Coleman, and they end up dominating on the penalty kill in the playoffs. in recent years it's shifted. You're seeing now a need for just not terrible.

So you can have a top 20 penalty kill in the league and it's fine. But if you have a really bad penalty kill, it's pretty much impossible to win the cup based on the correlational data. And also in the samples that I've been looking at, traditionally having a great regular season power play doesn't matter that much. But I will say it's starting to shift back. So we're starting to see better power plays among some of the recent cup winners. that said, again, Vegas sort of bucked the trend in every way. They were not good on special teams. They weren't good on special teams in the playoffs either.

So it's not like they figured it out once they got into the big dance. They were a great five-on-five team. And that is actually, I don't know if it's a cop-out answer, Craig, but the real answer right now, five-on-five play is a much stronger correlator than anything on special teams. It certainly isn't it makes sense, right? That's the majority of the game state you're going to play at regardless. So I think we're like breaking this down by the two pieces. you know, the power play, I think the benefit of it is pretty simple, right? Because in the postseason, creating goals is so hard and each one becomes so valuable. And so just having an easier source of offense where you can feel confident that you can create an extra goal here or there could make the difference. And I think back to like, I think the best example of this was probably that second Tampa Bay Lightning team in recent history, the 2021 version where, you know, they draw Florida right out of the gate in round one in that series, go.

six and I thought Florida was the better team throughout, particularly at even strength. But then on the power play, Kuturov came back from a single regular season, right, and didn't miss a beat and they just torch them. And then in round two, same story against Carolina in that five game series. And once again, that lightning power play just every time they seemingly got a chance, they wound up creating a goal. And that made the difference in those two. And then they kind of got their sea legs under them and started to play much better against

the islanders and the Canadians eventually and wound up winning that second Stanley Cup. And so that kind of gave them significantly more margin for error, I guess, papered over a lot of the existing flaws they otherwise had on that roster at that time. I think the other thing, though, is to keep in mind is a strong powerplay generally probably implies that you also just have really good players because the main drivers of a strong powerplay are typically going to be superstar forwards in particular. And you just look at this here, for example, the top teams in terms of power play efficiency are the lightning. the Oilers, the Rangers, the Hurricane Stars, Avalanche, Leifes, and Panthers. And all of those teams have forwards in particular who are driving the bus and creating that for them. And so it's, it kind of goes hand in hand where it's like, it's useful having a top power play because generally that means that you're just going to have

really good players otherwise, whereas we know that for penalty kill, you can kind of find more depth or utility players that are just good at that one particular thing, but might not actually be difference makers in other areas of the game, maybe you know what I mean. For sure. And I think that's really well said. And we see that correlational factor in the regular season, just having great players equals more goals equals more finishing ability on the power play. And just to sort of play devil's advocate and look at the penalty killing side of it, I do think if you have a strong penalty kill in the regular season, it does imply good structure, probably good coaching, good team defense, maybe really good anchor

defensemen or shutdown defensemen. And also good goaltending, right? So those are all things that might go hand in hand with a strong penalty kill. And if I look at that lightning example, what's, to me stands out, and I can tie it into another one of the Stanley Cup traits, one of the seven traits, is one of the traits was team weight, average team weight. So the heaviest teams in the league. And an inordinate number of recent Stanley Cup champions ranked among the biggest teams in the league. That includes Vegas, which was the biggest team in the league by mile last year. Also, both of those lightning championship teams. So if you're big, you play heavy hockey. It's a game of inches. Every little bounce matters in the playoffs. And you can correct

your mistakes. So if you have a good penalty kill, you can afford to not really hold back and play that physical style because you know you can bail yourself out with that penalty kill. So I do think that really helped the Tampa Bay Lightning. And that's why Julian Breeze Blas, he really did so well to overspend. He spent first round picks to get Barkley-Gadrow and Blake Coleman. But it was worth it because they really did make a difference on what was the team that really struggled to stay out of the penalty box. I think you hit the nail on the head there where you can get away with kind of an average one as long as it's not a liability. I think where you get into a kind of a slippery slope is when it's a legitimate liability and a concern for you where you feel like every time

you go to the penalty box, you're just groaning because you know that you're going to get in danger there. Right. And I think both a strong power play or a weak penalty kill in that regard can really also have kind of like a trickle down effect on changing the tenor of a series, right, where you're playing the same team over and over again, particularly early in the series. We know that officials actually call stuff. And then maybe as you go later into the series, they're a bit sort of more lenient and kind of let you play through it a little bit more. But you know that especially early in a series, there's this kind of cumulative psychological effect where it's like, all right, if we go over the line here and get penalized, we're going to wind up giving up a goal

against. And then so that, just the human nature affects the way you're probably going to play it, right? Maybe you're a bit less aggressive and generally you might be a team that needed to rely on that throughout the regular season. Now you're changing fundamentally the way you play. You're not finishing your checks as hard. Things are kind of just moving differently. And then all of a sudden, it's it's compounded, I guess, beyond what the actual, like the boogeyman element, I guess, of this special team's battle wound up sort of sinking its claws into the series. So that's really interesting to think about. Are there any notable examples you can think of this season of teams that either one way or another here for on the extremes, this kind of plays to or really kind of sticks out as, all right, this is a thing to consider as we head into our post season here.

Yes, there are two. One of them is the New York Islanders. They're a penalty kill. Even post-patrick-Wa arrival, he's fixed so many problems. But this penalty kill is historically bad. It is one of the worst penalty kills since the league started tracking that statistic. Last I checked it was, I think, 71, 72%, which is just unbelievable. More than a quarter of the time, the Islanders get torched on the power play.

And that's a team that does rely on being pretty physical. That's part of their identity. So I think it can affect you if you're Patrick Waugh, not just how you play if you're worried about that, which they are. You've seen it in the quotes in the media. This is a thing. This is a being a topic of conversation. It is in their head. but it's not just how you play, it's who you play.

So if you're Patrick Waugh from a coaching perspective, if you're worried about a certain player who needs to play on an edge and suddenly you're so worried about the boogeyman, like you said, you might be nervous to play that guy in certain situations. It kind of reminds me, I remember writing about this in the playoffs last year about it, and it was a hot take that got a lot of hate. But I remember wondering at the time if the Leafs should not insert Michael

bunting back into their lineup after he was suspended because he was playing over the line. and we know how good that Tampa Power Play is. So those are examples that ones from last year, but in terms of just a team that could be affected by their relationship with their penalty kill. The other one this year, also the Leafs, Leaves and Islanders are the two teams in playoff spots

that qualify for, quote, unquote, bad penalty kill at the moment. Yeah, the Islanders one's interesting because they're 32nd in the year, but as you mentioned, their 31st since Patrick Guad took over, and the north of 10 goals against per hour, and that's awful because there's only four. power plays in the league right now that score over 10 goals an hour. So they're essentially making every single team they play look like a truly elite top five power play. And that's

highly alarming because in the postseason like right now it looks like their most likely matchup is Carolina. They're one of those teams that are actually scoring over 10 goals an hour on the power play themselves. And so that's a nightmarish matchup. In that regard, I guess the one silver lining is they've actually generally, despite this sort of our belief of them, being this kind of like gritty physical team that finishes checks and jumps and chases and all that sort of stuff. They're a low event penalty team. And once again this year, I believe like they take the third fewest penalties.

They also draw amongst the fewest penalties. And so they're actually going to play typically a lot of five on five hockey. And so it's not like highlighted as deeply as it otherwise could be if they were just constantly in those situations. But certainly I think depending on who they play, they might wind up just inevitably taking more penalties just because they're, you know, against a team like Carolina, they're probably going to have the puck less often, more opportunities, take penalties. And that's kind of how you, you get into trouble. The Leaves one is, I don't really know what to make of it because I think historically,

it's generally been a strength for them, particularly last year, right, where they were really strong on a penalty kill. Now the personnel's changed a little bit. A lot of it does seem like they're just not getting saves on a penalty kill. Like, I don't think their underlying metrics are necessarily as horrid, especially as the season's gone along as the actual goals against itself is. So I'm not totally sure what to make of that, but looking ahead to a round one matchup that's most likely against Florida, they're the most chaotic team in the league, right? Like no one draws more penalties than them. I believe they're second in the league and penalties taking themselves. They're averaging nearly 10 combined, drawn and taking penalties per game. Like, they're going to constantly after every

whistle try to engage in some sort of a battle where either they're short-handed or they get a power player, it's four-on-four, or you're just taking you out of that sort of comfort and consistency of five-on-five hockey regularly. And so the Leif's power play has obviously been strong, but if that is a legitimate weakness against the Panthers team that is strong at both ends of the special teams battle, then all of a sudden I think that might be a very interesting wrinkle to that series that we're going to have to talk more about once we confirm that it's those two

playing and then it's starting doing our breakdowns with that matchup. Yeah, I think that's bang on. And the Panthers, like you said, they love to mix it up. And we've seen the template. They literally did it to the Leaf last year. Sam Bennett just imposing his will on everybody. Nick Cousins getting under everybody's skin and Matthew Cucke, they have so many of those personalities.

And I do think this series, it's going to be ugly in terms of the two of them going head to head. The Leafs have added a lot more kind of tough personnel. So I think it's going to be a lot of stop and start hockey, a lot of whistles, a lot of penalties, a lot of scrums. I think we're going to see fisticuffs. So I agree that if you look at the special teams, they're both strong in one area, the Panthers have that edge.

And ultimately, it could become a goaltending contest. If both teams are going to be getting lots of opportunities, I think this series would be a candidate to have the most penalties of the first round, it could come down to Sergey Brodowski versus whether it's going to be Ilya Samsonoff, Joseph Wall. I think it's likely going to be Samsonov based on how things have played out down the stretch. But either way, whoever it is going to have to outdo Bobrovsky to sort of, I think, be a tiebreaker in that special team's battle.

You know what's an interesting one that I've been kind of keeping an eye on over the past couple weeks here is the lightning, the other Florida team, because they're obviously first on the power play. We just sort of know about that side of the coin, like with Kucharles' brilliance on the half wall and just how lethal they are, especially lately, like, Stancoast has been shooting much better in converting his opportunities. And so that cross-ice action between them is, is just nightmarish for anyone to try to deal with. But their penalty kill this year is up to fifth inefficiency as well. And I was looking at this since March 1st, and they've played like

nearly 20 games now in that span. They've played 91 shortheaded minutes and goals are three to three in that time. So they're playing opposing power plays to an even stalemate, despite having one of fewer player. And you watch them, and in particular, like, Hegel and Sirelli are just such menaces, but they have so much personnel that they can throw out there. They can just eat up clock and just sort of pester the opposing team and never let you comfortably get into your offensive set in the offensive zone. And I was thinking back to that game, I know they wound up losing it to the Red Wings about a week or so ago, but like Sirelli had the two goals essentially taken away and then eventually

winds up scoring. And it seemed like every time he was out there short-handed, he was creating something himself. And so they're likely going to play Boston in round one here, right? And for this Bruins team that's sort of been bleeding talent in the past couple years, in particular this past year, yet still getting the results they have, such a trademark for them in terms of like what keeps their head above water throughout the regular season is just being so reliable at both special teams, right? Like they're just consistently top 10 on both the PK and the power play. and they're able to just against inferior teams clean up that way. And now all of a sudden they're going to be playing this lightning team potentially that's actually better than them in both of those states.

And so I'm very curious to see how that sort of influences the dynamic of that series and whether it makes a difference because I've been talking myself more and more into this lightning team as being a tough matchup for them in round one. And that's a bit surprising to me because as recently as a couple months ago, I thought they were just completely cooked and I was writing them off. And I thought, man, it's just over for the lightning. But they've been playing so much better as a whole. And I think this is sort of the genesis of it, this penalty kill and how it's given them more outs, I guess, to be in a team like Boston.

Yeah, I think you're right. And it's fascinating to me. This Bruins team, I think, is the least invincible looking in recent memory. And, you know, we see the void left from Patrice Burrough and David Craichie. And usually Boston is such a dominant five and five team. They're right up there with Carolina in this entire generation is the most consistently dominant defensive teams. And it's weird. It's not that Boston's absolutely terrible, but it's just weird seeing them mortal and not having that same advantage. And I agree, no team,

I would argue, I mean, coming off a 65 win season, no team had a bigger exodus of talent, because it wasn't just those two centers. It was Tyler Bertuzi and Dimitri Orlov and Garnett Hathaway. The list goes on and on. And I just don't think this ruins team is nearly as deep as we've seen in recent seasons. And I think that's why they relied, they rely a lot on that power play because you need passed out there and Brad Marchand doing damage. And I look at the lightning team. I think they're deeper than the Boston Bruins right now. When you can throw at someone like Nick Paul's, your third line center,

and even on the penalty kill, having someone like Luke Lendan, who's one of the best face-off people in the entire game, we saw he was one of the only non-star players to get some votes in that player poll this week for his face-off ability. And then you have the Twin Towers killing penalties on D in Victor Hedman and Eric Churnock. I just,

I like the personnel. And the key to me is what, version of Andre Vasselowski are we going to get? It doesn't feel like he is fully back to him, his perfect self. He's had his moments, but I don't think it's the true version of him just yet. He's not, I think, fully in a rhythm coming back from that injury that cost him to start of the year. So to me, that's the number one question for the lightning. No, it is. I think what's changed so much for them beyond that penalty kill is, first off, the addition of Duclair really opened things up for them because not only did it kind of infuse some more foot speed into

their team, but it also then allowed John Cooper to just full-time play Brandon Hagle with that Stamcoast Sorrelli unit. And I think you've seen the dividends of that where Stamcoast just looks so much more dangerous at 5-on-5 with another creator who can do a lot of the heavy lifting in transition and puck recoveries and support and all that in Hagle. And then you've seen also the evolution or development, I guess, of Darren Radish as like a legitimate partner for Victor Hedman to play with. And for years during Hedman's prime, we would always sort of talk about or I guess not necessarily lament because they were still getting fine results, but we'd be like, man, he's just playing with like anyone at this point, right?

Like you'd see like, yeah, and Ruta there, there's just a revolving door of sort of replacement level defenders, essentially, that he would work with Hedman because of his greatness. And now when he's not necessarily that player anymore, I think he does need a little bit more support in terms of like talent so that he doesn't have to do everything himself. And Radish has certainly fit the part. I liked him a lot last year in the postseason. he's continued to improve. And so now that gives them just more stability and depth down the blue line as well,

where everything's kind of falling into place. And so, yeah, I was, it's amazing because I don't disagree with you about the depth thing. And maybe part of that is sort of damning with faint praise because it tells you a little bit about Boston and where they're at as a team themselves. But I wouldn't have said that about the lightning compared to anyone as recently as two months ago saying that I think Tampa has more depth than this team. And then all of a sudden now, I actually do believe that. So it shows you how much they've come along.

Okay, let's take another question here. Let's keep it going because we did nearly 20 minutes on that. And it was a great sort of entryway into a deeper conversation. But thank you, Craig, for helping us out with that. Kendo asks, would love to hear your thoughts on the New York Islander's goalie situation. Semyon Varlamov is getting more starts here recently. How much does Patrick Guas history with him in Colorado influence his decisions in distributing starts? Now, Berlomov has started six of their past eight games during the seven and one run.

they're on since the beginning of March, which has them in a really good position to not only make the playoffs, but finish actually is the third team in the Metro and not even as a wildcar team. Now, it'll be fascinating because I think their final game of the season is a home game against Pittsburgh, and that one could be really important in terms of that seating and who gets in and who doesn't. But how do you feel about this? Because Sorokin certainly, ever since he came into the league, has been deservedly thought of as a top goalie. He just recently got a massive extension this past summer. and, you know, it was a slow start,

much like a lot of other top goalies in the league. Like his numbers are necessarily commensurate with where we've come to expect from him. I think there's a bigger conversation about that that we can get into. But let's kind of focus on the Barlamov part of this now because he's clearly got the net for the time being. And I imagine if this keeps up,

he might even be their game one starter come to postseason. Yeah, it's a very fascinating narrative. And first of all, with Varlamov, I think it's important for people to understand his game never really slipped. This is not a situation where it's someone like Jonathan Quick turning back the clock when it looked like he was done. Varlamov was consistently one of the best backups in the league when he started working

behind Sorokin. He was still like if you look at the same percentages year after year, goals saved above average among goalies that are in that backup tier, he was usually pretty high up. So to me, it's less about what's happened is less about Varlamov seizing the net. It's more about Sorokin regressing a little bit. But before we get disproaken, the idea that there's a trust narrative with Patrick Gua is 100% real. The best season of Varlamov's career was 2013-14 with the Colorado Avalanche.

He was fourth in Hart trophy voting, second in the Vezna, but fourth for the heart. And that was with Patrick Waugh. That was the one season where Wao won the Jack Adams. And it was really Varlamov's Jack Adams. If everybody can remember, that team was pretty bad under the hood, the underlying numbers, which is why it wasn't sustainable going forward for Patrick Wa. it ended up costing him his job. But it was Varlamov that really carried that team.

And I do think that relationship has sort of been rekindled. And it makes sense that while I was going with the guy with whom he's pretty familiar. But from the Sorokan perspective, Dmitri, you can cut me off if you want to pause there. Well, no, let me just make one point on Brawana because I do want to have a bigger conversation about Sorokan. He's played really well here, right? Like he's got a 937 percentage, just 12 goals against in these six games. Now, the most recent one against Montreal was watching that one. it was hilarious because I believe Pierre Engball himself wound up with more expected goals

created than the Canadians did in that game just to kind of like show you the imbalance in terms of how dominated that game was by the Islanders. And it was a rare example, I think over the past couple years of like them actually providing an environment or their goal, he just got to just chill and get a nice, victory without necessarily having to do too much. But he does have that 41 save shutout against the predators here recently where I think Nashville peppered him with nearly 100 shot attempts in that game, and he was phenomenal. So he certainly earned more of a leash here.

I guess what I keep coming back to, though, is regardless of the performance between the two, I think what it illustrates is prior to this stretch of games where Varlamov's been starting, the majority of them, the starts, the starts, Varlamov, 20. And I think that shows you the value this time of year. It's not necessarily that Mika Kiprasov, Marty Broderi, of getting into the 70s, but even 50 plus starts heading into April is a lot in today's game. And in particular with the demands of what Sorokin went through at the start of the year before the coaching change where in those 51 starts, he had faced nearly 1,700 shots and no other

goalie in the league was even at 1,600. Like he'd faced over 100 more shots in 5 or 6 fewer starts than a guy like UC Soros, for example, who I believe was second in shots faced. And so it was an immensely heavy workload, both in terms of, volume pressure environment and also actual games played and so it makes sense that coming into april now for a lama of even at his age would look fresher and have more in the tank i think at this point than seroquin i don't necessarily think that means that you know he might start game one but if he falters i think we might instantly see them go back to sroken and he might actually look much better

just because he's gotten some time off here to i think recover so it might even work well in that regard just to buy them a bit of time. But I think that's kind of what's going on here beyond just, you know, Patrick Waugh is familiar with Varlamov and he thinks he's better. I think, I think that just sort of shows you that this time of year, you kind of ride the hot hand a little bit.

And it makes sense that he's a bit fresher than the alternative. Yeah, the hot hand and the fresh hand. And I do think just the idea of these islanders goal is getting peppered, I think is really relevant to what we've seen from Sorokin. And if you look at different types of goaltenders, There are some that after years of just getting blitzed, eventually they just collapsed, which would be maybe John Gibson in Anaheim, right?

But there are other goaltenders that thrive on rhythm. And I remember this example. It was Ken Hitchcock told me about this years ago when the St. Louis Blues acquired Ryan Miller. Why didn't it work? One of the reasons was he got blitzed in Buffalo. He goes to St. Louis, which plays lockdown defense. He's doing the Ken Dryden, just standing on a stick, waiting for action. It threw off his rhythm.

He wasn't as effective. And Ilya Sorokin, those Lane Lambert, New York Islanders teams, they allowed a lot of shots. Even some of the Barry Trots teams, they sort of had a bend but dope rank mentality. They blocked a lot of shots. But considering the reputation of being elite defensively, they still gave up a fair amount of chances. And I think Sorokin is one of those rhythm goalies who possibly does better when he's facing a larger workload. And since the transition, maybe Varlamov right now, it appears like he's suited better to an islanders team that now has risen to, I think roughly last I checked that it was middle of the pack.

I think as of March, they were like 12th in shots allowed per 60, five on five since the Rwatra takeover. So that's my question. Is it actually kind of the opposite? And has Sorokin fallen out of rhythm because the team in front of them doesn't allow as many chances? That's actually a thing.

And I've had goalie coaches tell me that some goaltenders thrive when they're getting peppered. It's just the way certain brains work. No, and I think that's very true. And I think that's also what makes it so dangerous about particularly, like we don't generally, really see impactful goalie trades in season regardless, but in the summer, right, when goalies hit free agency and teams are looking to make changes in the position, that's what makes it

so tricky about like evaluating, all right, this guy did good in this situation. Even if you think he's a talented goalie and it wasn't some sort of like a fluke or mirage, it doesn't necessarily mean you can just drop them into an entirely different team and expect those same results, even if you pro rate them, right? And a guy I think of right now is Laurent Brasua, who has been phenomenal backing up Connor Hallibuck in Winnipeg, right, and has been worth every penny. And I think deservedly so is going to be a very trendy name this off season when he hits the unrestricted free-hanger market as a 31-year-old, I believe. And he hasn't played that much, right?

He got kind of a late start. He's had a lot of injuries. So, like, his actual volume of NHL games is still pretty low, despite him being in his early 30s. But a team like New Jersey, who I'm just trying to think of who would be good for them. And I'm sure they're going to revisit Markstrom, sorry. Ros, possibly even Allmark, like they're going to be having their hand in every single goalie cookie jar trying to figure out what they can do to fix what happened this season.

Brasawa would be interesting because unlike those three other guys, they won't have to trade a Mercer or a holts or any young player and pick to get him, right? It'll be a pretty modest free agent contract. But I don't see too many scenarios where Lauren Braswa next season for New Jersey would be able to have 17, 18 save shutouts the way he's had this season in Winnipeg, right? where it's been such a favorable defensive environment for him. So he's been phenomenal, and I think he would be an interesting player for a team like New Jersey, but also I think that contextual factor is very important.

And that sort of applies in the opposite extreme to what you're saying with Sorokin. Yeah, I think that's bang on. And certain goalies, they do sometimes look better when they're in those elite defensive environments and even Vegas, a strong defensive club as well for Bruce Waugh when he had his stop there. It kind of reminds me of the LA Kings, the backup goalie job for the LA Kings, when they were winning Stanley Cups and Jonathan Quick was in the starter job, but you have guys like Jonathan Burnay and then eventually Martin Jones putting up awesome numbers and then they get a chance as a starter.

Jones had a bit of a run, but overall they never could come close to reaching the numbers they had when they were on a Darrell Sutter coach team. So it's a really good point. Well, there's an interesting thing happening with Sorokin as well. And part of this is because of the start of the year they were so bad defensively. And in particular, like they were just so, like Jack Cotton's talked about this on my show where they were so conservative in the neutral zone where they were just sad.

back and let you enter and then get rush shots against them. And in particular, like with a lead, they were just playing so conservatively and gave up so many blown leads in that way that Sorokin's numbers, despite the fact that by conventional goalie metrics were necessarily all that good, right? He was kind of hovering around like a 910, say percentage, which is still well above average in today's NHL where the league average is 903 or 904, but also not necessarily like the 920 Vesna caliber that we've come to expect. Spor Logic has him still this season at plus 24 goals save above expected, which is amongst

the league leaders and would have them in legitimate Vesna consideration. Evolving hockey has him at plus five goals save above expected. And I think part of that imbalance is like Spor Logic still hates their defensive profile. They're either 30th, 30 first or 30 seconds in every single possession time, inner slot shot, slot shot, any sort of metric expected goal against. they're in the bottom three in that. And so despite the fact that his safe percentage doesn't look that good in totality this season, he's still, I think, given the circumstances, been really good.

And so I just wanted to note that because while I think it's fair that Barlam I was playing more now and he certainly like earned that with this stretch to see how long he can take it. I've seen a lot of sort of knocking of Sorokin's performance this season based on those expectations and the raw numbers. And I think he's been a lot better than maybe people have been giving him credit for this season. Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And even if you judge just based on the eye test, I haven't walked away from many Islanders games saying, wow, Ilius Srokin was really staking up the joint. Like maybe it's more an extra goal here, an extra goal there. I know some goaltending experts

have implied he's playing deeper in his net. So there's a little more holes to shoot at. He's not being as aggressive of a goaltender challenging shooter. So sure, you could find little things. Maybe that's a sign of a goalie who was pressing earlier in the season as well, trying to find something different in his game. But overall, I agree with you. And I don't think as an organization, I don't believe the New York Islanders have wavered from their notion that he's still the goal of the future. Obviously, he signed that massive extension. So to me, this is a blip. And like you said, it's entirely possible. They go back to him in the playoffs because it's looking pretty likely they're going to make it now. Even if Varlamov gets the game one start, I think that they'll be

willing to rotate and ride the hot hand during the playoffs. Certainly. All right, Matt, Let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we'll finish the week up with taking some more mailback questions here with you. You're listening to the Hockey P.Docast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right. We're back here in the Hockey Piedo cast with Matt Larkin. We are doing some mailback questions to close out the week.

Matt, we got a fun one here. The question goes, which player has had the sickest season and what's your criteria? It can be hitting a cool number of points, having the coolest goal scored, just been the most fun player to watch. I wanted to do aside from the obvious names, right? We're not allowed to do, not even just that heart caliber of player, but I don't even want to do like that second one. Like we got to dig beyond like Rupert Hintz.

I think people who listen to the show know that, Willie Nielander, like not the obvious names. We've got to go off the beaten path a little bit. Who's a player that comes to mind for you that you've just been entranced with this season, whether it's like some particular stylish flare in their game or every time you see a highlight of theirs, even if it's not that often, you're like, on a on a on a on a on a per play basis, this guy's just doing the coolest stuff. Is there someone that comes to your mind?

Because I've got I've got two or three names here that I wanted to shout out. That may or may not be surprising to you and the listeners, but I'll give you the floor here first to see if, uh, if you've got anyone that comes to mind. Yeah, it's fun because you can go in so many different directions. So we can bat a few names back and yeah, it could be like, it could be like a defensive defenseman. You could just be like, oh man, I love this guy, stick checks. Like, you could take this anyway.

I think so one for me, and I mean, he's, he's not, he's not exactly an obscure name, but he also isn't someone that anyone would have classified as a star going into the season, even though he won the cons of my trophy. But Jonathan Marcheseau, to me, I did not realize he had this extra gear. And there's been so much talk about Sam Reinhart, what he's done in his contract year. It was unbelievable. But so Jonathan Marcheoso, just blowing through his career highs as well. And for a guy who's not the biggest and he's not the fastest,

it's not like he has any one particular skill that stands out relative to his competition, but he's conscientious and he has great chemistry seemingly on whatever line he's played for during his tenure with Golden Knights. Obviously, the best fit he's ever has with Barbershev and Jack Eichol. But to me, he's someone that's had me shaking my head. I just didn't. I mean, I've always been a fan and his story is very fascinating. But I don't know if anyone knew he had this gear in him.

No, I think that's certainly fair. And I was actually watching a game recently. It might have been a Canucks game because we're blessed here in Vancouver with Ray Ferraro doing the occasional local broadcast here for Sportsnet as the color guy. And he was talking about Marshall's own. He was essentially saying I think Ray would know speaking from experience here. It's like goal scorer's love scoring goals, right? I think that's nothing new. But Jonathan Marsh is so like lives and breathes scoring goals.

Like he exists on this planet to score a goal and how it fuels it. him and just how it, as soon as he scores a water goal in the game, I feel like the uptick in his performance and involvement just dramatically increases. You can sort of feel that both him and the team feed off of it. And he scored so many big goals for this team as well, including a couple recently, right? That empty netter in overtime to essentially dash any hopes Minnesota had when they pulled the goalie a week or two ago. He had the overtime winner against St. Louis as well when they were kind of pushing them for

the wildcard spot. He scored 41 goals this year. and it's in a fascinating position career-wise where I just don't, despite the fact that I'm sure Vegas feels a lot of allegiance to him as much as they do for writing Flair and I love having him, I don't really see how they're going to be able to afford him based on what other teams would be willing to pay him on the open market this summer. So that's a very interesting name and I'm glad you shouted him out. I think the correct, objectively the correct answer for this question is Sunny Milato. because no one has better pound for pound vibes and energy from the hair to just constantly smiling to just having a good time out there to the point where I think he doesn't score very often.

But when he does, I feel like they're exclusively the coolest goals, right? And that what he scored against Carolina recently added to his highlight reel in that manner. So I'll go with him for the creativity perspective. and the other name that I wanted to shout out for you that unfortunately just isn't getting attention for this season because he's playing on a lottery team and there's so many other storylines with their seeming departure from Arizona

and kind of how that's commanded so much of the attention. But Dylan Gunther is having a phenomenal sort of first full-time season here where he makes a season debut in January 7th after starting the year in the HL. And since then, 15 goals, 16 assists in 42 games, Playing 5-15 with Logan Cooley, they're like legitimately winning those matchups, which is huge for two young players like that, particularly in a bad team. And I feel like whenever he scores, it is a top corner snipe that has the goalie just looking mystified where they're like looking at their glove to see if there's a hole in it or just like almost they've been frozen and they can't even believe that the puck actually went past them because it happened so quickly in a blink of an eye. And so his release and when he connects on a puck is a thing of beauty.

And I think he's obviously going to score a lot of goals in this league moving forward. But the fact that he's been so good two-way and controlling a lot of the possession and chance metrics the way he has on this coyote's team is highly encouraging moving forward. And something I didn't really think was even in his range of outcomes this early in his career. Yeah, that's a really good point. And it's fascinating to me that Logan Cooley, who was obviously the more hyped prospect going into the season, took a little longer to find his way. And it almost like it took Dylan Gunther being his linemate for it to really click. And I think if you look at the construction of the coyotes who, despite the disappointment, they have shown signs of improvement this year.

They were in the fight for a while. That team, you know, most people would agree Clayton Keller is the primary building block. And if you're talking to the future, most people would talk about, of course, Logan Cooley and also Conard Deakey, really powerful big center coming up down the pipeline as well. They have so much size. I guess it's almost like Bill Armstrong. He's a gigantic man. And he wants to fill his franchise with other giants. But to me, Genther is the first.

frowned, high pedigree talent that maybe was a little bit overlooked for whatever reason. And I always look for players who they score at every stop. So everywhere Dylan Gunther has played in his life, he just scores goals. Going back to major junior, being a major factor for Canada at the world juniors, it's just what he does. And when he starts doing that, when a player starts doing that at the NHL level very quickly, to me, that's always a sign that they're going to have a really exciting career. So I really like that one.

And I have two more for you, though, that I want to throw you away. Okay. And I'm trying to keep the emotion. emotional spirit of the question. Just vibes, like you said. Sunny Milano's a great pick. In terms of just that the did you see that highlight factor? How about Quentin Byfield?

This is someone who I think people forget when he was being scouted leading up to the 2020 draft. In terms of on the hype scale at the top of it, some people out there were saying Eric Lindross in terms of what his makeup was. I think the more realistic comparable is probably going to end up being Ryan Getsloff because Byfield's more of a distributor. than a goal score. But that's it.

I think this year, last year we saw him with a bit of an extended look in the NHL finally getting past his injuries. He cements himself on the first line in LA. But as more of a, I don't want to say passenger, but maybe facilitator, right, Adrian can be the goal score on that line.

But this year, we've seen those power moves from byfield that almost like are Rick Nash vibes to me that make me think, okay, maybe the ceiling is still there for him to become a big star in this league. So that's one. and the other just being Seth Jarvis,

the funniest player in the NHL. And having a great year, someone who was great in Major Junior, really, really good in his limited look at the AHL and is slowly improved with the hurricanes. But he just does it with a smile. He's so funny. He's such a character.

So I enjoyed him a lot this year too. Those are phenomenal picks, Matt. I co-sign both those thoroughly. Okay, let's do one more question here. And then we're going to sign out with some stuff to look forward to this weekend. Matt asks, If you were Steve Eisenman, how would you approach this offseason if your goal was to contend for a Stanley Cup in 2028?

What are some key moves the Red Wings need to do to become a legitimate contender? Thanks, Jens. Detroit's interesting, right? Because they're still certainly not out of this race. I thought despite the fact that they come away disappointed by losing in overtime. After that, Eric Carlson grip and rip shot, they still showed a lot of fight and wound up getting that one huge point where they don't necessarily control their own destiny now, but they're in a much better spot where

Pittsburgh's got some tough games ahead. The Red Wings do have this game this weekend at Toronto, which will be tough, but then they have a back-to-back to close the season against Montreal, and that's about as good. It never works out this way, right, because it looks easy on paper, and then all of a sudden Montreal is certainly going to win one of those games

or at least give them a scare and isn't just going to lie down for a divisional opponent. But at the same time, it's about as good as you could hope for because it's a team that's not really playing for anything in those two games. So Detroit's in an interesting spot here where they're still alive, but I think certainly the long-term view for a lot of fans is still there. What you see from this team right now and like viable stuff beyond the obvious of like,

yeah, just get more good players this summer. I think that would certainly help. But is there anything that you see with this team that's kind of viable or you'd like to see from them this summer that they could reasonably do? Yeah, this is a really complicated team to appraise, in my opinion. And by the way, if anyone's listening, the Red Wings, if they lose in regulation on Saturday, there are a few permutations that could eliminate them Saturday. As long as they get a point, they'll still be alive after Saturday.

Just one thing to note. But looking at Detroit's situation, I can't talk about it without being a little bit critical. So I believe the Red Wings made their move too early. So Steve Eiserman started out his tenure as GM fairly conservative and didn't get too aggressive right away. they started building that critical pool of young talent. But he made the move two summers ago. In the last two summers, the Red Wings have been very aggressive,

whether it's Andrew Cop or David Perrault, J.T. Comfort, we've seen all the moves they've made. And he's built this decidedly mid-group. Everyone knows the Red Wings underlyings have been pretty bad all year. They've been the team outperforming those metrics because they're just not that good. And when I say he made the move too early, what I mean is Eiserman did not have every piece he needed of the puzzle. of course he had really promising defenseman morat cider simon evison he's got the great goalie

prospect spashton cosa he's got really promising young players on the wings like lucas raymond but he doesn't have the franchise center and marco casper with all the respect is not him marco casper is going to be a good player in the nashlindholm but i think his ceiling is more like an alias lindholm great two-way impact type of player but he started building this team too early so when i'm talking about the long-term forecast it's too late now for detroit to get that franchise center that pillar to build a round. So instead, they're too far down the road. They're going to have to make aggressive moves and dip into that prospect pool, perhaps make some trades, whether they have to sacrifice someone like a COSA or a Carter, Missouri, there's so many different guys. Or they look at the free agent class

because they do have some cap space. They have a lot of money coming off the books. I think if I'm Steve Eiserman now, you have to say, okay, well, whether I made the right decision or not, we're too far down the road now. I'm going to throw a bunch of money at Jake Gensel, maybe at Sam Reinhart, if he ends up being available, maybe at Lindholm. I think you have to do it if you're Detroit. It's time. You have to just, you've started down this path. So you've got to keep going and try to build the team via acquisitions. Yeah, I think that's certainly correct. I'd much prefer out of those alternatives, Reinhardt or Gensel certainly than Lindholm, because I do think they need like more substance in terms of like, especially offensive punch who's seeing sort of the limitations

of this team. They brought in a lot of like, good players like the confers and cops, but I think they need someone who can actually sort of move the needle, particularly offensively and create for themselves. And for others, you hit the nail on the head there where they have less than 60 million in cap commitments this summer. Now they have two big RFA cases coming up in Sider and Raymond this off season.

And those guys assuming they're able to get them long term and I think they're going to push for both. I'm pretty confident they'll be able to get a mega deal done with Sider because we've sort of seen the framework for that, particularly like you look at another Atlantic division team in Buffalo in the contracts they've signed with their defensemen. I think like that's much more in place. Raymond has almost played himself into a spot where if I was advising him,

I would say under no circumstances are we signing an eight-year deal because your upside here offensively is so high over the next couple of seasons as you enter your mid-20s that you should play this out and get closer to UFA and then really cash and once more money's available than sort of signing for whatever you'd get for eight years right now. And in particular with Raymond, like this most recent game they played against Pittsburgh, I think really illustrated it. But he's been doing this for a few weeks now where I love Dylan Larkin certainly. And Alex Debrinkat is established as a goal score. But man, I think Raymond is their most well-rounded and sort of intriguing offensive player just in terms of purely what he's able to create.

and he's drawn 40 penalties this season. He's scored 29 goals. He leads the team with 68 points. But I just feel like the potential, like beyond all those results that are already banked is just bubbling beneath the surface, right? Like you can watch just how he moves and how he creates. It's just different than a lot of players.

And so I'm so high on him and I think upside's real. And so it'll be fascinating to see how that contract negotiation plays out. But yeah, Detroit's got, I just think they need to improve their defense. I think that's like as simple as this gets. I know we just said a bunch of forwards that are going to be on the market, but they're in the spot now where they've spent a bunch of money on veteran defensemen, yet Mo Sider is eating up the toughest defensive usage in the league. You look last night, he's playing all of his minutes essentially a five-on-five,

head-to-head against Sidney Crosby with Ben Sherrod as his partner. And it's like, how is a young defenseman going to succeed and grow offensively in this type of situation? It's not ideal. You've got Simon Edvinson in his first real stage in the NHS. She'll playing against Malkin's line head to head with Jeff Petrie as his defensive partner. How have they gotten into the spot where they've spent resources on defensemen, veterans who should be doing this stuff, yet they're relying on their two youngest guys to do all the toughest stuff.

So I think that's something they need to address and we'll see how they do it. They've failed the past couple seasons at try to accomplish that, but they still have a lot of assets, both in terms of cap flexibility and prospects and picks coming up that they could conceivably turn into a good defenseman. So time will tell, but it's an interesting spot. All right, let's close with this, Matt. What are you looking for this weekend? Because this is going to run on the podcast.

We had on Friday, it'll be on radio on Saturday so people will listen before the games start. What's the situation, whether it's a head-to-head matchup or sort of a seating situation that you really fixated on this weekend. That'll be interesting for fans to tune into. Well, I think one thing I'm excited for is we might actually get our first matchup solidified as of this weekend. And if the Dallas Stars win on Saturday, that will clinch the Central Division and it will lock in Colorado, Winnipeg is the first determined matchup.

And that's going to be a slug-vice. I don't think either of those teams is really happy to draw each other. And that's exciting to me because I think almost everybody would pick Colorado to win the series based on talent. But when it's Hellebuck versus Giorgev and the weird season he's had, that's a major equalizing factor that could make that series really interesting. And in terms of what else I'm going to be watching closely, I just, I'm really enjoying this Sydney Crosby narrative over the last month and how he's played since the trade of Jake Gensel. It's just one more awesome chapter to add to Cid's career.

And I do wonder, I don't think he's going to leapfog any of the big four in that that heart trophy race. But I could see Crosby ending up fifth on that ballot. And it's going to be time to vote in the next week or so. So I'm watching him as a voter. I'm watching him really closely as well. But it's been a pleasure to see this penguin's push. So I'll be watching them over the weekend as well.

Yeah, the Stars one's interesting because while it does lock it in, the Jets and Avalanche are tied at 104 points right now for home ice. And so that'll be fascinating because obviously I think we all understand that Colorado's got a big home ice advantage for a variety of reasons. And also for Winnipeg, they're going to want to play a matchup game in trying to get like Lowry's line in particular out against McKinnell as much as they can. And so for home ice would be massive for them.

And that has a head to head. So that's still kind of a coin flipper to be determined. So that's interesting. You know, the Canucks and Oilers, they have that head to head on Saturday. We'll see if McDavid is back. But right now, Conucks are, you know, they've played two more games. They're up four points on them. So that's still to be determined.

So that's interesting. And then obviously the East stuff, right? Just how it all shakes out, both from the president's trophy race to, I think Carolina's in an interesting spot here now, right? Where you look at their schedule and they've got three really winnable games here against the blues, Blackhawks and jackets the rest of the season. now the Rangers still kind of control their own destiny. They've got two games left.

If they take care of business, they can still lock down that one seed. But Carolina is at least giving them and applying a little bit of pressure here. And the Rangers have to play an Islander's team that they just lost to recently. That's obviously very hungry themselves. So a lot of not only seeding, I guess,

implications there, but also like whether we see Jake Ensel versus Pittsburgh in round one potentially is still up in the air. So there's a lot of fascinating stuff here. And yeah, this final week of the season, on the one hand, I just can't wait for the playoffs to get here. On the other hand, there's still a lot of, like, fascinating games like this that they'll have mass ramifications for what that playoff bracket looks like. It's so true. And I think it was Biz who said it on Twitter.

I'm trying to remember where I saw the tweet. But the idea was, is this the best regular season of all time? And it has been pretty amazing. Even if you look at the milestones that are still in play over this coming weekend, Matthews could get to 70 goals. If Connor McDavid plays any of the games over the weekend, he could. could get to 100 assists, but so could Nikita Kutrov. So it's been awesome to see these benchmarks hit as well. And this East race, it's just incredible how close it is.

And especially if the Islanders are able to win over the weekend, they could seal off the Metro in terms of locking in that third seat. So then you could have 14, I think it's four teams left, right? It would be Washington, Philly, Pittsburgh, and Detroit fighting for one spot. So I can't remember coming this much down to the wire with this many teams. just fighting tooth and nail and it's been very entertaining. No disrespect to the West,

but West, you just have it, you have your stuff together out there. Okay, we just one playoff spot left, okay, but the East is just sloppy. It's a hot mess, and it's added to the entertainment factor.

Yeah, they're playing in two entirely different playgrounds at this point, both interesting, but yes. All right, Matt, this was great. I'm glad we got to do this.

Thanks for coming on the show, man. I know it's a busy part of the year. So I'll give you a chance here to quickly plug where can people check you out and what can they look forward to moving forward. Absolutely. Thanks, Dimitri. You can find me at daily faceoff.com. Right now,

I have an interview with Rick Nash that just went up where he's talking about his dream of being an NHLGM and go to Daily Faceop next week. We're going to have a ton of playoff preview coverage, which we will start rolling out early because the playoffs start on a Saturday. So we don't want to just stuff you with all the information just on Friday. If some series are set, we'll start with some serious previews during the week. So watch for it on dailyfaceoff.com. Awesome, buddy. Well, that's it for another week of shows here. We'll be back on Monday. we'll be entering the final week of the regular season. And as you just said there, once we get closer to Thursday, Friday next week,

we'll be approaching playoff preview season here on the PDOCAST, which is always very exciting. But until then, I want all the listeners to enjoy their weekend and enjoy these few last couple days before we all just go into lockdown mode for the playoffs and wind up not leaving our houses for the next couple of months. So thank you for listening to us here on the SportsNor Radio Network, and we'll be back on Monday with more of the HockeyPediocast. Thank you.