The Hockey PDOcast - Stars vs. Avalanche, Tanev's Impact, and Dallas' Depth

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by David Castillo to talk about last night's Stars vs. Avalanche game, the direct and indirect impact Chris Tanev has had on the way Dallas is playing, and their unique depth approach compared to most of the other top teams in the league. 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 PDOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEOCast. My name is Maitra Filippovich, and joining me is my good buddy, David Castillo. David, what's going on, man? Ola, there's another much going to. Just, you know, hey, if you're a Starz fan, there's a lot of positive things happening, not a lot of negative if you ignore, you know, Saturday's game against Chicago. I think that was still positive.

And that obviously, if you're judging a game based on results, they lost and they didn't get any points in it but I think in terms of the process, right? And the way you play, that was about as good of a performance without getting the W as you can. So I'm not going to hold that against them. I've been waiting,

I got to admit selfishly to have you on till the post season. I haven't had you on since last playoffs because I know that once we start getting these playoff games going, I'm going to want to be just calling you up every day after every star's game and trying to do breakdowns with you. So I was trying to kind of pace myself in that sense.

And I'm confident or as confident as you can be in a sport as random as hockey, that there will be a lot of stars playoff games to break down this spring. But I think this was as good of an opportunity as we're going to have in the regular season after that, Stars, Abbs, Barnburner on Sunday night, to do so here.

And that kind of easily could have been passed off as a playoff game based on the quality of it and the intensity and the level it was being played at. So I thought it would be a good opportunity here to have you on, talk a little bit about the stars, but also I think build on this sort of headspace I've been in since I came back from my brain, last week, which is getting into playoff mode, right? Thinking about how all the pieces fit together,

the roadmaps for these for these best teams in the league, kind of stylistically, how they match up with each other and strengths and weaknesses and all that. So we're going to get into all of it. It's going to be sort of stars themed in that regard because you obviously cover the team. But I think hopefully there will be some some nuggets in here for for the rest of the West as well, just in terms of like getting the wheels moving and the skids greased a little bit, I guess, for the postseason to come. Yeah, that's it, as it should be, especially if you're a Stars fan, because something that's been noted by people like Dom Lustition and just in terms of the kind of ultimate in parity. There are a lot of great teams in the West.

So if you're a Stars fan and you're sleeping on, not that you would ever under under rate Vegas, especially given you on what they did at the deadline. But nonetheless, I mean, whether it's like Vegas, a team that. that I think some people kind of felt like it's a little bit of a paper tiger, but maybe not really in Vancouver, Colorado. Yeah, sure, like Dallas beat them. But, you know, it's really like a double, it was a double minor that really kind of broke that game wide open. So you should absolutely be worried.

I mean, the best team that they've had for my money, like the best roster, I think they've ever had in this franchise's history. But this is also like the best competition that I think a Western Conference contender would have in some time as well. So I don't know where you want to start if we want to like general broad big pick. Oh, what makes the Dall Stars special? What makes them flawed?

Why is the draft and so amazing for this team? Who's going to beat them if that happens? Well, there's certainly a lot of layers too. I guess I'll start with this. And the reason why, you know, I took that week off. I was thinking about a lot of this stuff. I came back on Friday with a couple of shows to close the week out. And the last one in particular, I had my pal Thomas Drance on and we sat here in studio and we sort of talked about it was a bit of a preliminary cursory look at the Western Conference, particularly at the top of the standings, right?

Kind of where teams are at right now, strengths and weaknesses, stuff like that. I've had more time to think about it since in particular watching that game last night. And I know everyone around the league is kind of preoccupied with or fascinated with the drama in the East, right? Because you look at that wildcard race and it's so tightly packed every single game. these final 10 days matters. All these teams are playing for their lives. At the same time, though, I'm sitting on my couch watching all the games yesterday. And first I watch Red Wing Sabres.

Then I watch Capitol Senators. Then I watch Stars abs as the sort of final course. And just comparing the quality and level the teams we're playing at, I can't, my heart's just not in the Eastern Conference race. I get why people would be intrigued by it. But just in terms of like the consequence and sort of the bigger. picture importance, Lee wide. I'm so fascinated so much more so by this Western conference and sort of this bloodbath that's looming pretty much from round one on for whoever is going to get

out of that portion of the bracket, if you know what I mean? Yeah, there's really, I mean, it's, I have not been interested in the East for, for a while, and not just because I low-key hate the Leafs. I used to be a fan when I was younger, by the way, so it's kind of, it's bittersweet. but also, as you said, just the competitive, I think especially in terms of just if you're a hockey nerd, like the Colorado matchup. You know, Colorado is like the second best team in generating chances off the rush. Bizarrely enough, first is the Flyers, by the way, I don't know if like any people are aware of that. And I think for Dallas, like the biggest challenge is going to be figuring out the neutral zone. You saw a little bit of that last night where I don't think there's a single team better than.

and Colorado is shortened in the neutral zone because, you know, they don't just play fast, but they execute fast. And some of that Jack Khan is noted in his latest, like, tactics ebook, which is that, well, it's not simply north-south. And I think, for me, I think Dallas, the key, and again, I think you saw a little bit of it last night, is not stopping them in the neutral zone, but, like, containing them, like, either heavy with the forecheck in the offensive zone or just alert play in the defensive zone. And what kind of worries me about Colorado, despite the result, is that it's something similar

to Vegas, where they're one of the few teams that can play a style consistently across all four lines and all three pairs. And Dallas doesn't necessarily have that. I think that's changing, and that's really crucial. But they're still 16th and shots off the rush. Yes, I know big deal is made about how many goals they score off the rush, but you don't actually generate a lot. This was the issue with Vancouver, right, early in the season, scoring a ton of goals off the rush, but they didn't actually generate chances. And sure enough, you've kind of seen that quote quote regression. And they're also 14th in shots generate off the cycle.

So there's really talented team. I think the intention is a little lacking, whereas that's not the case for Colorado. So I do sometimes worry about some sort of PDO effect, you know, if you will, but for their transition game. But also the injection of Stankovin and TANF into the lineup has really kind of fixed a lot of that. I don't know necessarily kind of how that's going to play out in terms of how does that affect their patterns, you know, broadly speaking or long term. Like, is there really just two players that kind of fixes the entire rush offense in terms of generate more chances or the cycle in terms of generating more chances? Maybe, maybe not.

But that's certainly a damn good start. I mean, that game was so fun because it really was two teams showing their best in that regard and kind of trading haymakers. they obviously combined 11 goals, 75 shots on goal, 44 high danger chances between the two of them, nearly 11 expected goals. And I know there was no Miko Ranton, and the Aves had some notable absences up front in particular. The stars were playing on a second leg of a back-to-back, including flying into Colorado Day of, which the ESPN broadcast made sure to remind us of roughly 20 times throughout the telecast. But you could sort of, I mean, there was clear significance, both in terms of like the central picture, right, with the stars winning that and kind of

pulling away from Colorado and we're going to talk more about the trickle down effect of that in terms of the round one matchups. But I think that's a great point you made there in terms of the rush game and trying to sort of in looking ahead how you combat a team like Colorado because they are so dangerous in that regard. And no matter what you do, they're eventually going to find a way to get theirs. And you could sort of see that throughout the game where there were stretches where Dallas was playing remarkably well defensively.

And then all of a sudden you'd look up and Nathan McKinnon just randomly had a two on one and you're like, all right, I don't know how that came together, but within a blink of an eye, they were let loose. And so that's going to happen. And I think that's why it's so important the Jake Andre has bounced back a little bit here because regardless of whatever the team's defensive metrics are and how stingy they are and how few shots they're giving up, just over the course of a game or a series this postseason,

those opportunities are going to come up and he's going to need to make his fair share of saves. But what really stuck out to me beyond, you know, Dallas's offense. We're going to talk a lot about that is that defense. side of things and kind of try to combat the avalanche in that regard, right? And before the deadline, I was quite concerned about the possibility of that because while I don't think anyone can necessarily stop a team like Colorado or even Vegas at their best in transition, the foot speed of this blue line was particularly concerning beyond the top two guys in Haskin and Harley, right? And I still have my concerns about the third pair, certainly, especially if Niels Lundquist

is just never going to get the benefit of the doubt from this coaching staff and we're going to see a lot of Yanni Hockenpa, I'm sure, in the postseason. But Chris Tannib's impact and his influence on this team is so widespread, right? And I thought that first period in particular was so important in highlighting that, just sort of that stabilizing influence. I know it kind of sounds like a cliche, right? Sort of a stay-at-home defensive defender. Oh, this guy is so reliable.

You could trust him. He does all the right plays. But then you watch it. And in this case, it really is as simple as that, right? There's a few instances there where there was one that stuck out to me where Nathan McKinnon's kind of pressuring them behind the net on a forecheck and he absorbs that and completely unbothered makes a simple little pass to get them out of the zone transitioning the other way. There was the two on one where Devon Taves in kind of trademark fashion starts sprinting up

the ice and it looks like Colorado's going to get an opportunity and he pokes it away. Kail Makar had a play where he sort of beat the forecheck himself and the broadcast was raving about it in his edge work and he's going up the ice downhill and Tannav breaks that up and then obviously the past leading to Duchenne's first goal. There was a series of those plays where in isolation, each one of them wasn't necessarily some sort of highlight real worthy play aside from, I guess, the past of Duches, but you put it all together and it really kind of helped illustrate why he's been so important, why he's been such an awesome NHL player for so many years, but why he's also made such a difference for the stars team in particular?

I think the other thing about TANF that I think really deserves emphasis, because it kind of combats the sort of perception, right, which is you listen to kind of your typical garden variety, milk toast commentary, and it's all about like, oh, this guy's so tough and riddy, and he'll block shots with his face, which is great. Well, not great for TANF, but, I mean, he sacrifices. You get it.

Like, yes, he's a blood and guts type player, which he is, but I think TANF really kind of represents kind of like, I think, the prototype for players like Kiannui Miller, who this kind of, what I like to call these hybrid shutdown defenders, where, yes, he excels in a specific role, which is to shut things down, but he has a lot of offensive skills that he just simply leverages in the defensive zone. Yeah, it doesn't manifest in production, but his skating is fluid. actually has quite good top speed, you know, out in the open. And I've been really impressed.

I mean, granted, like, yeah, we saw this in Calgary as well. But Calgary also played kind of a more shutdown style. So you didn't see it as much with them as you did, as you do in Dallas, where some of this, like, deceptive passing and his puck handling that kind of really come alive, I think, with his team. So I'm not saying that TANF is going to suddenly start, you know, scoring points and whatnot. And like, just to emphasize kind of what you said, which is that, It's also really important to have a defenseman that you can put out besides Heiskenen against elite

competition and not have them just crumble like a cookie the way they had in the past where you had guys like Hock and Pott and Sutter against these elite players. And that was just drastically different result. But I do want to shout out somebody that I've been hypercritical of his entire career, which is Esselandelle, because I've always, you know, early on, I didn't like that, the narrative is that, well, hey, you know, John Klingberg needs, John Klingberg in his prime, granted not John Klingberg from Toronto. John Klingberg needs, it needs a stay at home. And S. Lindell is that guy, which is ironic because he wasn't drafted for that. This is a guy that

scored over 40 points in the HL in his rookie year. But to me, that's always, that's like, that's symmetry. That's not chemistry. Defensive guy with offensive guy. I get it. It kind of makes, you know, intuitive sense, but it doesn't always work that way on ice. And so Lendell, his game was too static for me. Like, this guy that's not a good skater. He's an awful passer. And I'm like, okay, what is there to work with? But there is a lot of stuff that,

and I think he's also a good example of where you dig deep into the numbers and do the quote, quote, analytics, an obnoxious term, we needed to, like, destroy. But that's neither here nor there. But as a player that I, you know, as you look at those advanced numbers, it kind of caused you to sort of reassess your vision,

right like well what am i missing and and turns out i'm missing quite a bit and he's a player that really seems freed up by tanniv's um prowess and even though tanniv is not like creating an offense per se well i should say he's not producing but in some ways he has created transition offense um and lindle looks really good as well he looks faster even i don't know how to explain it other than raw just sheer sorcery but uh he does deserve a i don't know honorable mention. Well, David, Chris Tannove has made a career of doing this exact thing with his partner. Now, I think the quality throughout the years has varied wildly, right? There's there's Quid Hughes, there's Noah Hanna Finn, there's Oliver Shillington, there's various types of players,

but everyone seems to look better with Tannab. And I think that's because all of those things that I just mentioned there that he did and showed in that first period, like directly improves the playing conditions for their teams, right? And that's something that's such an important concept where constantly just tilting play in his team's favor. And I think the way he fits in with his team and sort of an underrated component of this is the requirements for a defenseman playing top minutes on this stars team is very sort of diverse and dynamic in the sense that

for them to be at their best and for you to be able to fuel what they do at both ends of the ice, it's not, you can't just be good at one thing, right? Like it's very important that you can make that pass to sort of get that transition game going for them, particularly if it's going to be up the wall so they can work it back into the middle and then sprint up the ice, but also then being able to defend on an island and kind of stop some of these rushes coming back the other way, because as soon

as you have rush opportunities yourself, we know that there's going to be a tradeoff where stuff's coming back your way as well. And so Tanev's very uniquely suited to do all of those things, right? He gets much more of the credit for the defensive part of things, and you certainly see that. But similar to what you're saying with Lundell, I think, like his his puck movement ability in particular under pressure and just be unbothered with a forechecker in his face is such an underrated quality to his game that he's done pretty much for the entirety of his career but you're seeing that again here and I think that's a big selling point for the stars team as well it all kind of goes hand in hand but you can't just

have one without the other in this case yeah no I mean there's there's not a whole lot to add other than just like it's it's been it's turned what was I think a legitimate flaw into an active strength, which is kind of weird to say because, right, you think of Dallas as really good defensively. And I know you asked a really important, like, I love that you asked him this question the other day when you had Jack Hanon about sort of, you know, to me, I never understood how this team was so good defensively with the blue line that they had last year. And, and, of course, that connects, you know, to like offense and like the centers and other things like that. But that's no longer the case.

this is no longer the blue. Now, the third pair, I mean, I don't know if we want to go down this rabbit hole, but like I don't think the third pair, I guess the question that maybe I might ask you is, is how much a pair that you need to shelter, otherwise they're exploited, in this case a third pair, is really how much consequence that's going to have, broadly speaking, for a terms. Like, I don't, I just don't think it's going to be that big of a deal. although I say that now and then and then sort of hawk and pot comes back in, gets burned by McKinnon in a critical game seven and then, you know, which is what happened last year,

which is, you know, Ryan Sutter was the weak link on the top pair, awful turnover results in Vegas's game two win in the playoffs last year. So, so I'm still, I'm still not sure about the blue line. It kind of feels, and that was the irony to show.

Sean Walker scoring the first goal last night, which is, man, my thing was, okay, you get TANF and Sean Walker, recognizing that DeBoer is not going to trust Nils Lundquist. Like, I mean, that ship sailed a long time ago. And that Hock and Pah is a downgrade over most play. I mean, Hock and Pah wouldn't even be like a huge problem, I guess if they had a way, they had somebody that could move next to him. But that was kind of tough to watch because I feel like if Sean Walker was on Dallas's third pair, this team has like.

just no problem winning the cup. Like, I have, you know, not that I would like bet money, but I'm just saying, like, that's that's the one, I think, question mark for the blue line that I don't think is going to hurt them, but that I do think is going to hurt them in moments, whether or not that manifests in a series loss or a cup win, I don't know, but. Well, what's happened since Tana have arrived, though, is it's created a clear distinction in the pecking order in terms of deployment amongst the pairs, right? And that's something that they didn't necessarily have previously where it was essentially just

Miro Haskinen and he would play all the minutes. And then it was whoever was playing with him would come along for the ride and play a bunch. And then it was just a mishmash of usage, right? In this case, both in terms of time on ice and situational usage, we've seen everything kind of fall in a place. And part of that is they're playing Mero and Harley nearly 195-15 minutes per game since Tanna arrived right in these 15 games they've played. and they're using them primarily in offensive zone starts, right?

And they're giving them that sort of situational usage, which obviously makes sense because of their skill level and how likely they are to create a goal. Then Taneb and Lundell are playing around 16, 5-15 minutes per game, and they're getting the majority of the defensive zone starts. And then they're sort of curating these minutes along the way for the third pair. We've seen them when Lundquist is in there. Sometimes he'll get an offensive zone draw with Hayskin and like he did yesterday.

They'll sort of work their way around that. Souter is going to get his. At the same time, though, while I still think it's probably a bit too much, there's a massive difference in exposure between him playing 23, 21 for game last postseason and him averaging 1644 now since TANF came into the lineup, right? And so you could still quibble with that. And certainly, I think what we're seeing with Lundquist is wildly unfair because I thought he was playing a good game. He makes one mistake in front of the net, gets beaten, and it sort of reinforces all their pre-existing concerns about him.

and we don't see him at all in the third, third period, right? And that creates its own kind of series of issues because once you put Hock and Paw in there, he's playing with either Souter or, God forbid, we see him playing with Lendell again. And then all of a sudden, you've just got two guys out there who can't move the puck,

who stifled his team offensively, and you sort of get back into spinning your wheels and getting it back into the issues, they suffered last postseason. With the current construction now, regardless of what the third pair is, I think they've shown sort of that usage in terms of the first and second pair,

that it alleviates a lot of those concerns just because I think the exposure is so limited and they can sort of manage it, particularly when we come to the postseason where I think they're going to be more willing and likely to play those top two guys in particular even more than they are right now in the final stages of the regular season.

Yeah, no, I think it's a great point and it's kind of, it should alleviate concerns for stars fans. I think the thing with, I guess the reason why it still sort of bothers me beyond just the NHL is not development league. therefore they're going to be hypocritical with ice time and mistakes yada yada it's just like the worst phrase in the world to me but um i think to me the strongest argument for lunkwis is not

that i mean for one i don't think linquis is a top four defender in waden right in many ways this isn't the julius honka wars all over again but in some ways it is um and i think like honka you know, Lundquist is never going to be a top four defender, but that's not to say he's not one of the top six. And I think the strongest arguments for Lundquist is that he seems to have chemistry with Sutter. Hock and Paw has not. I mean, that's just, I mean, for even Starr's fans, right, who don't care about analytics, like that's just something they see on a night and not a basis where their worst flaws are revealed. But I also think the strongest argument for Lundquist is that I think, and I'd be curious to get your opinion, which is I think offense lower in the lineup

is more important, whereas defense higher in the lineup is more important. And so it's kind of like, to me, I think of as way to sort of right, especially if you assume and take for granted that hockey is a chaotic sport and it's random, not primarily, but, you know, there's an element of that of randomness and chaos. Well, you know, you can't control chaos, but hopefully you can leverage it. And I think by having players that can finish plays like Lindquist's can find ways to maybe leverage that chaos. And that's something that I think I would like to see. I know it's not going to happen.

But then again, you have Harley and Highskin together and Lyndon and Tanniff. And you pretty much have the exact same template from 99 when Dallas won the cup, where you had the offensively lean in Sador with Zuboff and the sort of just, you know, hip check machines that were Matt Bichuk and Hatcher and the second pair in a shutdown role. So I think it's interesting. I think it's kind of accidental that it worked out that way. But the top four is so good that, yeah, it probably won't matter. I wish it didn't have to, though.

Well, the problem is when Hockenpa is in there, he's just most likely going to be playing with someone who also treats the puck like it's a grenade. And so you get into this issue where you don't really have anyone out there then for those shifts that can get the puck there forwards and actually allow this team to play the way it ideally wants to play. And I think that's a really interesting point. they're about sort of, you know, generally we've been trained to think, all right, top of the lineup, those are the guys that play top power play unit. They get the offensive zone starts.

They're the ones who are paid to produce offensively. And then teams are much more willing to sort of fill out the depth with cheap, defensive veteran players. And the stars, I think, have fallen victim to that in the past, certainly, right? You think about last year's postseason and the fourth line they were trotting out there with Luke Lundding and Radick Vaxa, that was about as big of a black hole offensively as you could have, right? And I think they, you know, they certainly serve their purpose in certain situations,

like someone, having someone who can just eat up a bunch of defensive zone minutes and allow your forwards to cook offensively, there's value in that. But once you get later into the postseason and you start playing teams like the Golden Knights where their four-fline has like Nick Wad and they're going to be creating offensively themselves, you can't really afford to be just punting even if it's seven or eight five-on-five minutes per game and expecting to get nothing offensively out of that group, right? And that's a big thing here for. We talk a lot about the depth of the stars team

and how many scoring options they have. I mean, lost in the shuffle is the fourth line where you watched them last night against the abs. And there were shifts at whole shifts at a time where Smith and Steel and Faxo were just keeping the abs pinned in the zone. They were cycling the puck. They were creating chances.

And just having a group like that now that can actually give you a few goals here or there, but at least keep the puck territorial in the offensive zone and give you strong starting points for your top line when it's their turn to come out there is a big distinction between this year's version of the stars and previous ones. And it's lower on the list of reasons why I'm higher on them

than in the past, but it's certainly something that shouldn't be kind of, you know, taken for granted. And I think that ties into what you're saying there with sort of like line up construction and what your expectations are dependent from, you know, first to fourth line. I think what I would add

too is the ripple effect. I think it has. So I don't know, sort of this is something that's an explicit discussion within the Starz Organization and sort of the concept of load management. I don't even really think hockey has kind of had that argument. And sort of, I kind of wrote about this while back, kind of just the science of load management itself. Like it's, I think pretty much understudy, right? So I'm not going to make any comment about like what I think is valid in terms of load management and what I think is happening. I don't have any insider knowledge. But what is evident, regardless of whether or not it's explicit or not, what is evident is that that fourth line being able to crush those minutes is I think probably the main reason why when you look at the

ice time distribution for the stars forward lines, pretty much every forward line is kind of within that 12 to 18 to 19 minute sort of kind of window. And if you look at every other competitive team, whether it's Edmonton, Colorado, even Carolina, their top lines are playing upwards of 20 minutes. And I don't necessarily know if there's a way to kind of sort of like evaluate and find out kind of like evaluate the efficiency of that approach, but it's hard to argue with Dallas's results. Now, I think most of that comes from the luxury of well, you also have three lines that can crush it beyond just the fourth line. But we also forget, man, the fourth line is not just Steele, who has been fantastic, by the way.

Like, he's in Faxa and Smith, but also tied to Landria, who I still kind of hope, I still think he's an NHLer. And it's bizarre to me that a guy could score like 27 points and what's functionally his rookie year and then just be discarded. But Delandria, the Donov, and I guess if you want, you can include Maverick Bork, but I mean, that's really like five lines deep. You might even be able to make an argument that there's a better fourth line that Dallas could create.

But no, the fourth line has been fantastic and I have no complaints, which is odd because I used to just absolutely deplore facts, mainly because he was in second line center minutes, but under bonus. Yeah, I mean, last postseason, Fax and Glendinning combined for three five-on-five goals in like 150 minutes. And this year, that fourth line, 350 minutes together as currently constructed, up 13 to 60% shot share. And I think the difference between those two is very glaring.

And I wanted to note that because while we're talking, like, I remember the years where Rick Bonas would be playing Foxa as much as Rupert Hins. And I'm sure he's listening. You know, the Vince McMahon of him like him just getting increasingly more excited. That's Rick Bonas listening to this right now. Being like, oh, fourth line playing as much as the first line. But in this case, I think that's going to change come to postseason, right? Because we're like, we're going to need to see the top line assert them.

themselves more and we're going to talk about that more when we come back from break. But for now, I think just in terms of getting through the regular season and preserving everyone and sort of having that depth, I think that's been a key for them. All right, David, let's take a break here. And then we come back, we'll pick things right back up. You're listening to the Hockey PEO cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. Miss any part of Halford-enbruff in the morning? Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcast and don't miss an episode.

All right, we are back here in the Hockey Pediockees joined by David Castillo today. David, let's keep it going. We were talking about Tanev and Chris Tenev and the impact he's had on the stars. Part of that is I think it's allowed, and you know, when they acquired him, I think we were all interested to see how they choose to use him, whether it would mean Mero shifting back to a strong side, whether he'd be a partner potentially for Harley or whether they'd use him the way they've decided to, which has been just playing him with S. Lundell on the second pair, which has then alleviated a lot of the preexisting concerns about just loading up Haskin and Harley on the top pair because of. of what it would mean for the rest of the depth chart on the blue line. And one of the perks of that has been, and I'm not sure I want to talk about this with you, I've been messaging you about it. I'm not sure how much of it is just sort of it confirming some of the preexisting biases I had

where you watch, you watch Haskinen play and the talent is obviously there offensively, and I feel like he should be producing more than he has in the past. But because of the way he was asked to play, particularly with his partners and what he meant to the team in the grand scheme of things within their entire concept, he wasn't really given the license to do so. And part of that might have been the team thing, part of it might have been his own habits anyways, because he's just wired that way and he's so responsible and reliable that he would still be playing that way regardless. But now seeing him sort of unleashed full time with Harley as his partner, I can't help but feel like some of these habits in terms

of his approach that I've wanted to see are starting to seep into his game. You're seeing him be much more aggressive in terms of his willingness to be deep in the offensive zone, to see possessions through there, to extend plays, and to kind of like hang out there until it's time for him to work his way back up towards the blue line. And that's something that he was very reluctant to do in the past, I think, because he would make his initial rush and then instantly cycle back and be in defensive position.

Now he's doing much more of that kind of hanging around, trying to create plays. And you're seeing the production follow. And I can't help it be. excited in the grand scheme of things that this might just be turning a new leaf that we've been hoping for for years now for Mero. Yeah, no, absolutely. This has been one of the stories that's kind of received a lot of, that Stars fans are

very familiar with is just the, a lot of the discussion about how in the offseason, Heistin worked on his slap shot. And sure enough, that's something that he's been, like, actually some of I've been critical, of course, also some that really, like a lot of fans just thought, was hilarious when I was in the middle of criticizing high skin for being a little bit too a blunt with his slap shot. Like he scores a slap shot goal. I can't remember what game it was.

I think it was Arizona. And so there's definitely been a concerted effort to be more and tap more into his offensive skills. Now, the slap shot thing, I think, is kind of its own. I'm totally cool with him developing his skills at the NHL level. I think it's been a little, I've been. been as bond of him just defaulted into the slap shot. But I still like totally respect.

And I think what your observation, which, you know, as we're on Twitter kind of note in multiple occasions with him below the hash marks is something that I think is a direct result of how he's kind of been more intentional with his offense this season. And so hopefully that whole thing with Slapshot, which is great. You know, if he can develop that weapon, that's fantastic. Hopefully it's also just a function of him kind of just broadening his skill set and being able to calibrate that offense. And you've actually seen it in the splits. Heisken has been on the ice for more goals since paired with Harley, which is 34, through the last 29 games than he was in his first 38 without Harley, which was 33.

So that's almost like 10 games, more goals and 10 less games. I mean, that's quite a difference. And I think that kind of speaks to what you're talking about. I'll do you one better. Here are the on ice 515 goals per 60 for Mero Hayskinnan in his career. 2.25, 2.18, 1.7, 2.23, 2.87 last year. This year without Harley, 2.35, with Harley, nearly 600 minutes now of data, 3.95, which is absolutely elite, right? And part of that is because obviously Harley is just so much more gifted and likely to create scoring chances himself than a lot of the partners, Mero's played with in the past.

but you're sort of seeing some of these benefits, right? I think back to the goal. I know it was on the power play, but like the goal against the Oilers where he's hanging out below the face off circle and makes himself available to receive a puck and then pass it over cross-ice to say again for the tap-in. Even the, I think it was the first or the second goal

the star scored last night at the end of the first period against Colorado. He stays low. He wins a battle. He extends the possession. It eventually winds up being cycled around. He gets off the ice. But Lindell comes on and they create a goal. And that wouldn't have really happened if he wasn't willing to see that play through.

And it makes me think of Daryl Belfrey's theory. He always talks about with Barkoff where part of the reason why he doesn't score despite all of his immense gifts and talent is because he's just wired to have these kind of habits where he will pull the plug on a play early and work his way back up high in the zone to always stay above the puck. And that I think, you know, we could have a whole conversation about whether that's in the best interest of the team and whether it's good for a player like that to be sacrificing their individual numbers to help others get theirs.

And it certainly works for Barkov and it has worked for Hayeskinen throughout his career. But I do like in this situation where now they have the benefit of having a legitimate second pair that can hold their own as well in defensive assignments that him and Harley are just being used as this supernova offensive pair. And that's really exciting because that's just kind of a reality that he hasn't had the luxury of in the past. And it's a whole new world for him. Yeah, you know, just to promote Belfrey once more, especially the Belfry offense book.

So in that book, he talks about underhandling. And I think that's something else that you're seeing with Heiskenen really kind of, that seems something that kind of manifests in his game, which is him kind of learning how to underhandle the puck. Just kind of do, you know, less is more kind of thing, right? where he's better at unleashing his shot, you know, as soon as he receives a pass as opposed to receiving the pass and then trying to be fancy with, you know, some sort of behind the net maneuver or the way, you know, he's able to kind of essentially sort of pass a little bit quicker than maybe he has in the past kind of feeling like, well, he's the only offensive threat for the team.

Therefore, you know, he needs to sort of, you know, select or, you know, choose that sort of perfect plan today or tomorrow instead of the, you know, good plan today. And did I get that expression right? Yeah, that's on it, it's on. It's on it's moved to me. But anyways, yeah. So, so I think that's absolutely a big part of it. I think it's also a function of Heiskenen, two things, right?

One, which is maybe sort of truly learning and kind of learning to sort of play offense on his weak side because that's just another, you know, I still think it's something that long term you probably don't want. I still think you probably want him on your weak side or on his strong side. But nonetheless, like for now, I think he's really adjusted well. And I think the other thing too is just like the fact that, well, now you have a lot of really dangerous lines that can kind of, you know, read off of your routes, make plays. And that's also kind of really unlock in, you know, a lot of his, I don't think he's

necessarily an offensively creative player, but he is like an offensive player of momentum. him in velocity. And I think this team is absolutely taking advantage of that and tapping into it. Well, along the lines of the team's offense, let's talk a little bit about the forward. So they've got eight players now with 20 plus goals. And that doesn't include to Donov, with 12 and his 50. And probably would have gotten there himself. Stankovans got six in his 20 games. And I've said this before, I believe he's a 30 plus goal scorer true talent right now, as soon as next year he'll get there. They're led by Wyatt Johnson's 31. And what's so interesting to me is, you know, we talk about the unique roster construction of this stars team and both in terms

of the ages and kind of how they have all these various generations who are all equally contributing, but also the production. And it's so fascinating to me in today's game where, you know, I think by the end of the season in these final 10 days, we could look up and there could be 70 to 75 guys in the league with 70 plus points this season. We've got three players atop the the Art Ross debate right now that have 130 plus points and are going to be pushing 140. And yet it's very likely that the Stars team at the end of the season is going to have 170 point score in Jason Robertson, who leads the team with 77 and 78 right now. And that kind of illustrates sort of this depth and how they've been utilizing everyone and

how their top players don't necessarily play as much as some of these other guys who are putting up crazy point totals. But it is also just, it's interesting to me, right? because it kind of on the one hand leads to a conversation that we can have about Robertson and Hins's production. We can also marvel at what Johnson and Stankoven are doing. I'll give you the floor here to pick one because I do want to get into both with you before we get out of here. I mean, I guess like just quickly like big picture, I do think that the biggest story about

Dallas and some of you kind of talking about, which is the nature of their draft. I mean, this is a team that rather than like rebuild, retool, or whatever word GMs want to use that's more diplomatic than planning to fail to succeed. You know, they regenerated. The old core of Ben Sagan gave way to Robertson, Heiskin, Harley, and Andger. And now you're seeing what I would like to call like a co-core with Johnston, Stancovin, Bork, and another guy, 19 years old, who's about to play postseason across two different formats, one in Europe, one in North America, which is Liam Bigsell, who I think he's a Chris Tand of Starter Kid.

He's fantastic. I love the guy. And anyways. But, I guess the interesting layer to the stars is that they're not just in some like Vait Win Now Window, right? It's this rarefied air of not just having a window, but like an entire high rise. And so if I had to pick one, it would definitely be Johnston just because it's crazy how mature

and yet one of the things that doesn't get discussed about Johnson is just the fact that he seems to have really worked on his skating. And I don't see people talk about it enough, but this was a good. guy that was already really good with the net front presence, the perfection of routes. And I think that addition of agility has really quickened his ability to kind of run those perfect routes. And I mean, 30 goals at that age would be impressive in any context. But this is a player that doesn't play your first line minutes. And even like, I guess, you know, kind of stepping back.

Like, I wouldn't say that he has the quote, quote, ideal linemates for a player that produces that much. I mean, Stancovin is still going to be, I guess, Calder eligible right? Into next year, which for all this gifts, you know, still makes him an experience. And then Jamie Ben, who is having, you know, listen, like, Ben is having, like, a really good year for a player of his type. But I, he's still a player that I think kind of broadly is a weak-ish link, right? I mean, defensively, he's still bad.

if we're being honest. Of course, he's capitalizing on plays, which is the most important thing, especially for a player of his age and quality. But I think what Johnson is doing. I mean, I think that's why sometimes Starr's fans are a little hard on hints, you know, because he's scoring a little less on breakaways,

even though he still broke 30 goals. But I think it's because, well, hey, do we already have the number one center to replace hints who's still only 27? possibly. Yeah, I mean, him and Stancoe and watching what they do together in the way they play off of each other, it is highly amusing to me. And I just, I can't get enough of it, right?

I made a joke on it on Twitter after they scored the goal that put the game away against the avalanche. But it's just like a constant, constantly moving, never letting off the foot out the gas pedal, just badgering the opposition. And it must be for defenders so annoying to try to keep tabs on them and kind of figure out where they're going to be, right? Because it's just an endless sort of cycling and constantly everything trying to be funneled to that net front area where they're going to try to create high danger chances from. And they've been so good together.

They're generating north of five, five on five goals together in 250 minutes together. It's just been another remarkable layer to their offensive game. And a lot of this has kind of helped have relatively by their standards, pedestrian offensive seasons for Robertson and Hints. And I wanted to couch it that way, because I think you've made an important note of this that they've seen, like Hints has seen his minutes in terms of difficulty and in terms of defensive zone starts escalate quite a bit from the past.

And I think that plays into it. I think the usage is also important here where you've got Hints playing like 1715 per game, which when you compare that to most other top line centers is shaving off about five minutes of usage essentially for five minutes. And so that certainly plays a big role here. And I think that's by design. Part of it is the luxury of having the. as much depth. Part of it is his all-out approach where I'm sure the stars because of his nagging

injuries and how sort of like just taxing that style is on him, they want to make sure that he's ready to go physically for a long postseason run. And so all of that makes sense. But at the same time, I think people are still kind of waiting to see whether there is that second shoot to drop here, right, in terms of when we come to the postseason, whether it will be unlocked a bit. Because I do think while the depth is great, we do see in the postseason and it gets underrated in hockey because we talk so much about the team concept and how one star can necessarily outweigh everything else around them. But at the same time, in a postseason series, there will come a point where you need your best players to take over and distinguish themselves. And I think, you know,

Hintz has certainly done so in past both seasons where he's been a big game player. But just based on his production right now, I can't wait to see whether all of this was part of sort of gearing up for that bigger postseason push from him. No, that's a really great point. And I think it was Ryan Stimson who kind of wrote about sort of hockey as a strong-linked sport, right, kind of, you know, closer to basketball rather than soccer, which is kind of routinely compared to. And, and yeah, I think it's if there's one thing, if there's a criticism that you can kind of

lob at Dallas, it really is, well, would you rather have like depth or dominance? and so does Dallas really have that dominant player? I don't know. You know, certainly you wouldn't kind of describe what Hints and Robertson are doing as dominant per se, at least if you're just looking at production, right? This was like the big discussion over like that weird viral tweet about Kucherov, how you don't know Puck if you don't think Kuturoff is the best player or whatever. But for Hints, I think sort of there's, so like Puck IQ as a,

is a really great stat for quality of competition because it divides quality of competition into tiers, right? There's the elite and the sort of middle of the pack and then the so-called grittensity, which I think is a great word. And hints right now, a long, hints in particular, is seeing like a full minute more versus elite competition than he was last season. So this is a player that's no longer being sheltered. This is a player that really has, you know, yeah, he may not play as many minutes, but those are really tough minutes and it's still sort of, you know, breaking that kind of 30-goal barrier. In addition to the fact that, you know, listen, he's technically passes peak production window. So I would just say to me, you know, passing 30 goals of that age is

house money. In terms of whether or not he can find the gear that he had last and last year's playoffs and even, you know, back in 2020, that's going to be hard to say because we don't know what this team looks like when DeBoer decides, you know what, let's go ahead and play hints 22 minutes a night and then, you know, the other like the Duchesne and Johnson lines get less. So it's hard. I mean, like to me,

I think another issue that doesn't get, you know, mention a whole lot is the fact that like Joe Pavlowski has hit his wall. I mean, he's still productive and that's great. But in terms of shift to shift impact, he's a guy that's really kind of struggled to stand out on that line. even though, I mean, there's still a great line by any measure,

but in terms of the standard that they've set and whether or not that's going to manifest and dominance in the postseason, it's kind of hard to say. Well, what I want to see from Hints, and I noticed this, and I'm not sure if you picked up on as well, like he's been scoring some goals lately, but a lot of them are credit to him because, you know, the shot's not necessarily working,

so he's, like, getting to the net and he's tipping Pucks in and sort of getting some of these greasy goals to still get his, but haven't really seen him sort of score that trademark mark fly into the zone and just laser the puck past the goalie the way I think when I think of Rupa Hince, that's what comes to mind, right? Rupa Hins go Burr. And he hasn't really done that. I think he's done it like once in that overtime winner against the sharks about a month ago. And that's like pretty much it for the past couple months. So I want to see more of that from him. And from Robertson's perspective, he still leads his team in scoring. I think one of my concerns,

though, is you're seeing the shot creation and the chance creation come down the way it has in the postseason last year, right? You and I talked about how that was part of his struggles. And so I just want to see that uptick again because that's obviously going to be a big part of his game in terms of not just scoring, but actually creating those chances. Yeah, I think that is like the real question mark, which is that, I mean, for the most part, it's been Jake Ondor, right? That's been the question mark. And he's pretty much answered that, right? Since, you know, over the last like several weeks. But now, you know, the focus shifts on, you know, sort of stars best players, Robertson and hints. And I don't really know that there's a, you know, know that there's really like a,

a pattern emerging for them to be the players that they were offensively last season and the season before. I think in part because I would like to think, at least in Robertson's case, you know, part of it's that, you know, if the voters took analytics seriously, you would actually hear about Robertson in Selky conversation because his defensive metrics are just insane. They're absolutely nuts. It's sometimes hard to notice and I can see why because I don't necessarily think it's kind of stump that something he does great in the defensive zone or like elite position. It's just like dogged work in transition, you know, stealing the puck, things like that. And then of course, extended possession in the offensive zone. But also like it's not the kind of thing

that I necessarily think is a tangible detail or a marker for whether or not, you know, this team is going to win it all in part because to me, I look at the teams. When I think about the teams that it really kind of, you know, that have won it all, I think about the teams that are not trying to copycat or, you know, a prepackaged identity, but, you know, teams that really define for themselves what is success. So sure, it was like offense for Colorado and, you know, it was balanced for Tampa Bay, defense for the Kings. And I think what you're seeing with Dallas is like, let's just lean into what we're good at, which is depth. And so that part doesn't, I'm not necessarily worried in terms of, well, if Robertson and hints are necessarily going,

the way you want them to be, despite the evidence being that, yes, you know, hockey is a strong in the sport. Your best players should be your best players. I think if any team has potential, kind of like subvert or undercut that argument it's going to be this team i think that diversity is going to suit them well as right because you look ahead to the postseason and you're if you're going to make a long run you are going to be tested by various different types of opponents and the way they're going to have to kind of force you to play right and just looking ahead on the one hand it's great that you know they seem to have locked up this first seat in the central and are potentially pushing for first the west and that'll mean home ice throughout but it also opens the door for a potential

Godman they have to run where it's like the rematch for Vegas in round one, Colorado in round two, Edmonton in round three, and then you get to the Stanley Cup final. And so just to get through that seems incredibly daunting. And all those teams present various different types of challenges. But this team has shown, and I kind of made this point in that Friday episode with Trans, where I feel very comfortable saying that regardless of what you asked them to do, they can beat you in different ways, right? They can grind out possessions and cycle the puck, work it up to the point, get layers in front of the net and tip the puck in and score that way.

If you want to get into a bit of a track meet and trade chances, they're very comfortable creating off the rush as well. There's obviously different weapons there and guys that can produce a lot on the way if their top players go through a bit of a cold spell. And so all of that is in place. And I think that's incredibly important. I think that suits them very well for a long postseason run.

But there is the challenge of all the teams you're going to have to play. And so I think that's what's going to be so exciting. From my perspective, I guess for Starz fans, may be so anxiety-inducing, but that's what the NHL postseason is all about. David, we got to get out of here. I still had so many notes that I wanted to get through, but the 50-minute time limit is what it is.

So we got to sign out here. I'll let you plug some stuff on the way out. Let the listeners know where they can check you out. Not a whole lot. Just you can always find me at D Magazine. I'll be doing recaps each game with Sean Shapiro. So that'll be nice. We saw what it felt like series.

And of course, you can find me at Star stack, which is a substack that I don't get to plug on Twitter because Twitter sucks. Yes, I recommend people go check out your work, though. I love reading your writing, and so everyone should go check out the way because you think about it in a really fun way, but I think also the way you articulate it is very exciting to me. So I want people to check out your work, and it was great to have you on. Like I said, off the top, I'm sure that I'm going to be calling you a bunch during the

postseason to break down some of these games, and hopefully we have a lot of fun stuff to discuss. my only plugs are go smash that five star button wherever you listen to the show five Dallas stars in this case and join the Discord the invite lake is in the show notes and that's all for today.

We'll be back on Wednesday with plenty more of the Hockey Ocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.