The Hockey PDOcast - Sunday’s Matchups, Team Tendencies That Have Changed This Season, and Hockey Tactics 2025

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Jack Han to take a closer look at the Avalanche vs. Stars matchup we saw on Sunday, Seth Jones' struggles adjusting to filling in for Aaron Ekblad, Vancouver's lethargic attack, the Blues improvement under Jim Montgomery, Toronto's approach under Craig Berube and whether it better prepares them for the postseason, the offense vs. defense trade-off in New Jersey, and the Senators as a playoff opponent. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dmitra Filipovich and joining me is my good buddy, Jack Hahn. Jack, how's going, man? Super. We finally got the book out. So let's talk about it today. Yeah, very exciting. You recently released Hockey Tactics 2025, which by the way is a must read for our listeners, who are the true diehards. we're going to get into a lot of the material here today as part of our conversation. It's also, I think, as we approach the playoffs, some of the best prep you can have for learning about your opponents, some of their tendencies that little X's and O's that drive a lot of these postseason series. Let's cover Sunday nights games a little bit because I did my Sunday show earlier this week because of some schedule and conflicts,

and so we didn't get the chance to talk about some of the big games on the schedule. We obviously saw the abs and the stars in Miko Randinen's return to, Colorado on Saturday. And I thought there was some interesting stuff there from both sides. I thought the abs, I'm not sure how much of you got to catch, but the abs looked unbelievable in the first two and a half periods. They were so fast attacking in waves. You could see how some of the impact, some of the additions they made at the deadline

made just in terms of the ability to sustain that type of five-on-five play. It honestly looked like one long extended power play in the offensive zone for them. Some of that was certainly Dallas's deficiencies, defensive. which we're going to get into in a little bit here. But, you know, the afts slipped up a little bit briefly in the third. The stars capitalized it to at least steal a point. But I thought it was a very impressive showing from the abs. And they've been stacking together a handful of these now since the deadline.

And this is a likely first round matchup for us. And I'm curious if you thought there was any sort of notable takeaways in terms of how that series would look like and whether we could potentially have a different result than the round two matchup between these two teams that we saw last season. Yeah, I mean, the thing with Colorado is that, you know, when they have the puck, you don't have the puck, right? So when they have the puck, they're so in control of what's going on. But on the flip side, all it takes is maybe a good play or maybe a couple of good shifts in a row for especially a team like Dallas to really wrestle control away from the game. So the thing with Colorado is its biggest strength is they, play at a much higher pace, but their biggest weaknesses, as soon as they get off and they take

the foot off the accelerator, then they kind of concede control of the game. So again, we'll be a fascinating playoff matchup and one that I'm certainly looking forward to watch. We got a question in the Discord mailbag from one of our moderators. They're the great Dr. Sanchez, and they asked, can teams run different skills? schemes for different lines or is it generally better to have consistent game plan for lines one through four so that the deep pairings don't have to adjust the assignments. And I thought this was a relevant question to mix into a conversation about the abs, right? Because the past couple of years,

we spent a lot of time breaking down Kail McCars with or without your numbers when Nathan McKinnon's out in the ice versus not and sort of how they drop off and what that means in terms of who's responsible for that environment they have, who's driving the success. And I think that probably this question applies better to the avs than anyone else. Maybe you could make an argument for Tampa Bay just because the way line one operates with Kutravan Point versus line two with Hegel and Sorrelli is so different tactically in terms of playing style,

but for the abs, especially in McCar's case, when he's on the ice with McKinnon, some of the options that are available and how he plays off the puck is just going to be so wildly different than when he plays with any other combination of players. Now, I think that was, even more the case early in the season when they were cycling through so many

fringe NHLers and were banged up and didn't have guys available. Maybe it's a bit of a different conversation now that you have Nachushkin and Brock Nelson online too. You have much more depth with coil on line three. And so you have guys that can physically maybe not replicate what McKinnon does, but be placeholders so that you can kind of try to do some of the same stuff. What are your thoughts on that from a coaching perspective and how it applies to the have.

So I think what we're having really is two sort of parallel conversations. And the first one is obviously, you know, when you're a fan and you try to educate yourself, a lot of your knowledge of sort of what's happening is going to come through the statistical side, right? And whether it's, you know, from looking at kind of like the raw data, whether it's consuming sort of some of the models or the visualizations. like Jayfresh's player cards, for example. And, you know, there's the thing that you have to realize is from a modeling point of view,

it's really difficult to accurately sort of evaluate a player if there's a lot of sort of ice time that two players spend with each other. And the classic question when, you know, maybe 10 years ago when we were both starting out in the hockey industry was like, Like, you know, who was better Daniel or Henrik Sedeen? And it was pretty much impossible to answer in a really, I would say, objective matter because they basically always played with each other, right? So you didn't have any sort of a without you sample.

And it's very difficult whether you use sort of less sophisticated techniques like with or without you or you use sort of modeling techniques. They just don't have that track record away from each other and you couldn't really know. And, you know, those examples are really rare, but what you do see with McCar and McKinnon is they spent so much time together. And also they spent so much sort of quote unquote on purpose time together that the time that they do spend apart, a lot of it are, it's sort of happenstance, right? Maybe one of them gets trapped on the ice on a line change and they're tired or maybe, you know, Colorado's just ice the puck. so it's not really the coach's decision to put them out there, maybe away from each other,

and that causes some wonkiness. Another example of this sort of modeling, you know, wonkiness is Ryan Lindgren. So when Lindgren plays with Fox, it appears that the numbers are really bad, and then when Fox plays with someone like, Chandra Miller, he thrives,

but I would say, you know, some of it is obviously Lindgren not being quite the player that he was a couple of years ago, but, You know, the other side of it is that it's just him and Fox play so often together that now that Lindgren is in a different environment in Colorado, I would anticipate his numbers to sort of, you know, bounce back toward league average. He's certainly not a great player at the NHL level right now, but I think he's certainly a usable one. So, you know, I'm not really sure how to answer this from purely sort of a modeling point of view, but we see, you know, McCarr is sort of recovering.

and then Linger and I think he's going to sort of fall back toward average. So that's the first half of that. What's the second half? So the second half is, okay, so to really answer the question is, you know, do teams play different system across lines? I would say defensively usually no, because it's really important for everybody to be on the same page when they're defending, again,

if they're caught out there with unfamiliar line mates or people they don't usually play with, you still expect them to let's say or check in a 1-22 if that's the team way of doing it or you know play man on man defense if that applies but offensively you do see a big difference between the top of the lineup and the bottom of the lineup so the main thing is you know we know that NHL players

are the best in the world and they can do everything on the ice but for Nathan McKinnon to try a certain type of entry play he's going to have a much higher success rate than, let's say, a Casey Middlestap, right? And that's the thing. So you could tell Middle Statt to play the same way, but, you know, because he's a little bit slower, you know, his shot is not as much, but not as much of a threat. He's maybe rationally less good as a pass or as a stick handler. He might only be able to pull off that play, I don't know, four out of ten times as opposed

to six out of ten. And that's a really big difference. well that's why I suspect you see some of I acknowledge everything you said there in terms of sometimes you're caught out there and then you wind up in the defensive zone and you wind up bleeding a few chances that you might not have otherwise in an attacking situation but just from the macar mcinnon example i thought you did a good job by highlighting this in your hockey tactics book in the Ave section as well where when mckinan's out there he's just such a freak of nature with his puck carrying ability and his speed and the amount of respect that commands from opposing defenses that that kind of like that kind of like you know, he pushes the deback, all of a sudden creates these pockets for a guy like McCar off the puck to either attack weak side or work his way into the slot or kind of get lost just because all the attention isn't on him. Whereas if he's out there with, say, the third line or something, he's probably having to do more of the creating on puck. It's just an entirely different set of circumstances. Almost an entirely different game that he's having to play. I think that's why you see in some of these very extreme examples as well in terms of Tampa, for example, you're going to have,

Kuturov in point playing a lot in the offensive zone, specifically with the headman pair. Whereas when Hagell and Sorrelli are out there, I think John Cooper is going to try to get guys like McDonagh out there more just as a complementary skill set and to make everyone's job easier in terms of knowing what they need to do and where they need to be. But I find, especially for defensemen in the context of their environment and kind of how they have to play to either sacrifice some of their game, but get better results for the team. Dylan Sandberg in Winnipeg, for example, right? We've seen a couple games now that I talked about on the Sunday show with Neil Pionk out,

and Pionk's so much more offensively oriented that on that pair typically, I think a guy like Sandberg is capable or willing to take a bit of a backseat to not be as involved in the offensive zone to allow Pionk to play into the strengths of his game. And so he plays a certain way. Now he's playing with Luke Chen all of a sudden, and you watch the game Sunday night in Seattle, and he's in so much more command in the offensive. zone. He's initiating the offense. He's moving around much more. He scores the overtime

winner in a spot he otherwise probably wouldn't have been in. And I feel like that's one of those things, the context of the environment and the situation that maybe we don't put enough stock into. And that's why it's cool to see guys playing in different spots so that we have kind of a before and after as a piece of the context. Yeah. I mean, I've always like Sandberg as a player just because he does so much of what you want your modern two-way defensemen to do, which is he skates very well. He has a very good stick. He can defense skating forward.

He can activate and join the rush, except, again, as you mentioned, now he's sort of more the guy that's going to finish a play, or the guy who's going to be first, you know, activating as a defenseman, whereas, you know, usually that would be more Pionk, who's a little bit more of sort of on the puck. So, yeah, again, for a young player, like, I think it's cool for him to get that opportunity and get that range. And again, you know, Luke Shen, like, he's been surprisingly effective as a guy who doesn't need the puck a lot, which he was, I remember a couple years ago in Toronto with Morgan Riley. Like, that was a surprisingly functional. Or even before that with Quinn Hughes in Vancouver.

From the Star's perspective, we've gotten seen them a couple games now over the past week. they played in Edmonton, they played in Winnipeg, they played in Colorado most recently, a bit of a grueling schedule. Obviously, they don't have Mero Hayskin and Tyler Sagan, so maybe it's not fair to kind of evaluate what we're seeing now with all that in mind compared to what it could look like in a round one matchup against Colorado, but just seeing the defensive deficiencies in terms of that right side and not only the lack of puck skills and asking guys like SL and Dell to maybe do too much on their pair because he's playing with Cody C, C, C, how,

Ilya Lubushkin's foot speed affects Thomas Harley's decision-making in the offensive zone and defending the rush. I'm curious for your take on sort of why the stars have chosen to go this route because they make the big rant and trade at the deadline. Obviously, it's a long-term move getting to sign him and keeping him there, adding a bona fide star who's such an efficiency machine offensively and gives them different options up front. I think that's great and that's going to benefit them moving forward. But their entire decision making on the back end over the past calendar year or so since the off season where Chris Tanna leaves in free agency and they replace him with Dumbah and Lubushkin, they acquire Cody Sisi at the deadline. You watch it in games like this in Winnipeg and Colorado and it's, I mean, it's visible to anyone watching how that sort of limits them and especially with that playing style under Pete DeBurr where they love to fly the zone with the wingers. and expect their defensemen to be able to make that pass. How, as you noted in your book, in the offensive zone,

they're very aggressive about sending all three forwards down low. And then that it requires offensive involvement from the defensemen. Once the puck works, it's way back up to go D-to-D, to sprint on the weak side, to just get more involved offensively. And you're running out these guys who clearly aren't able to do that at this point of their careers. It's a bit baffling to see sort of the incongruence, I guess, between the forwards and the defensemen on this team?

Well, I mean, yeah, and I think it's, you know, especially the right side, it's been a weakness in it's pretty much day one of the season. But when you look at what they're trying to do, it does make some sense in sort of a macro scale because, you know, it's counterintuitive, but in the playoffs, it's offense that wins championships, right? like the teams that struggle to score in the regular season, they completely dry out in the playoffs and they get eliminated early. So what has Dallas done?

What they've really doubled down on getting, obviously upgrading on the top end of the lineup with Rattanin, but also sort of adding to the middle of the lineup with Granlin. And, you know, they brought in Cici, who's a right-handed D that, you know, those don't grow on trees and plays sort of a similar style as Dumbah and Lubushkin,

which is, you know, they don't really move the, puck all that well, but they're bigger bodies and they can be somewhat physical. But it just seems to me like this team is banking on their ability to be good enough from the back end so that their forwards can really take over the game. And I mean, it does make sense on some level. Well, yeah, for the most part, to their credit, you do during this extended stretch without Hayskin and available, they've been scoring a ton.

And even you saw in this game how just in a short period of time, they're able to turn a couple of mistakes by the abs into a few goals. And that might be good enough for them. But I do think they're sort of playing with fire. And I guess it's a TBD. We'll see what it looks like when Mero comes back. Let's switch gears and talk about the Panthers a little bit. We got to see them play two games this weekend. They lost in Montreal and in New York against the Islanders.

And I want to talk to you about Seth Jones because I know it's a player that's been of much interest to both of us. You've written about him quite a bit in the past. I think after the trade, I expected his numbers to bounce back significantly, just going from Chicago's playing environment to Florida's what they ask of the defensemen, how the skills he still does have at this point of his career are ones that are probably going to be able to be maximized in the system, the flaws be sort of limited or insulated, and yet he's played seven games and I have five-on-five. the metrics are ugly with him on the ice.

46% of the shots, 40% of the chances, 42% of the expected goals are down 6 to 1. And especially the past four games, ever since Aaron Eckblad got suspended and ruled out for the rest of the regular season, he's had to play a top hero with Gus Forsling. I think that's exposed him quite a bit. He's, you know, as a result,

had to play against the other team's top offensive weapons. And so his issues are flaws in his game with the lack of ability to pivot and recover and defend the rush have been magnified. And you could see that in the game on Sunday where the ultimate winning goal by Noah Dobson, part of it is kind of a careless mistake by was Balinskis just dumping the puck out and putting it into space, which Dobson was able to recover. But Seth Jones gets caught flat-footed and just blown by essentially by an opposing defenseman. And it looks ugly, and there have been an increasing number of those glimpses in these past.

four games and I'm not sure what Florida is going to do. I'm sure it's a big adjustment going to this team and they're playing style and now all of a sudden going from a second pair roll to playing with Gus Forseng against top competition, but they're going to have to figure this out over the next whatever 15 games as they get into their postseason because it's it's becoming difficult to ignore and it looks really ugly when you're watching these games. Yeah, I mean, my initial impression was that he was going to be an upgrade on whoever Florida's third right D was going to be.

So I figured, you know, it was a net positive for Florida to bring him in. Certainly now that Eggblad is out, you know, having Set Jones play sort of your matchup, top pair D role, like that's not ideal because again, you know, the big thing that keeps popping up with him is his defensive skating is not good, right? Like he's big, his forward skating is fine. He's got good hands. He has a very good shot. He can put up points.

You know, he can play a lot of minutes, but he's not going to be effective at defending the rush against the other team's top six or top line players. And once Egg Black comes back to playoffs, he's not going to have to do that as much. And the parallel that I made, what I wrote about on the newsletter, like immediately after trade was, you know, Brandon Montour was and is far from a perfect defenseman, right? Like as active as he is, as good as skater as he is, he's not that great defensively either, but, you know, he was able to find a very successful niche on this Panthers blue line all the way to the cup last year.

So if Ekblatt comes back for the playoffs and Seth Jones plays more of sort of an offense first role against maybe, you know, the other team's death players or middle six players, I think he can still be out of value. But it's just, you know, right now, getting used to Florida system, which is obviously quite different than Chicago is getting used to sort of, you know, the expectations of now having to carry a top line. It's a lot. And I would maybe wait another 10 or 15 games.

I would as well. It's been an issue, though, is getting exposed. I mean, the fact that it's dragging, gust forcing down as a result is a tough look for the Panthers past four games. I said the expected goals in total, but past four games, 12 percent, 43. 38 and 30. Now the past couple games this weekend, Florida was just very uncharacteristically sloppy, a lot of turnovers in their own zone in particular. And so that's those kind of recovery situations that crop up following those are going to burn Seth Jones more. So if the rest of the team irons it out a little bit, especially the forwards, I feel like it can still work. But it's not an ideal

situation at the moment. Let's talk about the Western Conference wildcard picture because we saw a couple games. They're going to impact that on Sunday night. We saw Utah go into Vancouver. And finally, win a close game for the first time and forever it feels like there are only two points back now the canucks offensive issues are well documented but in this game it was particularly ugly at 5-on-5 47 minutes worth of gameplay they generated three chances 13 shots on goal they wound up with 19 shots on goal total for the game which is the ninth time this season they were held below 20 it was the 30th time they've been held below 25 they had a four-minute power play in the third period where it felt like Alexander Kerfoot as a penalty killer

had more possession time than the actual power blade did itself. When you wrote about this Canucks team in your book, they were the poster child of glass and out in terms of exiting their zone. They don't generate anything off the rush. They're 32nd again. They're 32nd in slot shots, 28th and expected goals.

They're still hanging around this playoff race somehow because of how mid the competition has been. But man, it is a brutal watch right now, and I'm not sure what the fixes are, what they're available. Certainly very few of them at this point of the season. It's probably looking like more of an offseason thing. But I honestly, I absolutely despise watching this team. They might be 32nd all my watch abilities ranking right now

just because of how ugly it is offensively. Yeah. And the thing is, is tactically, really nothing has changed since last year. Like last year, they were shooting something like 20% off to rush, so they were scoring some goals, and they were, you know, very safe with the park, very conservative in terms of the risk taking. They defended quite well, and it's always easier to defend when you're leading in games and you feel like all you got to do is round the clock.

And this year, it just hasn't been that. But in terms of the X and O's, nothing's really changed. And the thing that I think at the NHL level, that's really difficult is, you know, you can have success playing a very sort of quote unquote simple game, which is what Vancouver did last year. But the longer you play that game, the less poise you'll have with the puck, right? Like the more you feel like you want to get rear of the puck immediately and, you know, you sort of become too comfortable defending or too comfortable waiting for a counterattack to a point where now this team is not really able to generate much of anything because they just, first of all,

like, you know, the personnel hasn't gotten better on the contrary. But second is, you know, everybody up and down the lineup, they feel like they have to play simple, simple, simple. And when you do that for about 150 games at the NHL level, you actually start losing poise on the puck and you start losing your ability to, you know, your feel for taking chances. Yeah, I had concerns about the sustainability. The shooting percentage and everything is obviously well documented, but just in terms of playing that particular way and sort of the margin for air and how everything worked in their favor from all these early goals last season that

have allowed them to play the way they wanted to. And then now the situation they're in and how that's sort of been flipped on its head. The upcoming schedule is brutal. They've got a six game road trip coming up before that. They have to host the Winnipeg Jets. And so, I'm curious to watch on Thursday that game in St. Louis in particular because this Blues team that I wanted to talk to you a little bit about blasted Anaheim on Sunday, 7 to 2. Their upcoming schedule is the opposite. It's incredibly soft. They've got three games somehow against the Nashville Predators in the next six, a game against the Blackhawks mixed in there as well. They've been playing so much better under Jim Montgomery, which maybe shouldn't be a surprise considering Jim Montgomery is just a really good coach.

We saw what he did the past couple of years before this one in Boston in terms of squeezing the most out of them tactically. they're 24, 16, and 6 under him. Their second and 5-on-5 goal differential defensively, in particular, with a personnel group that I think is quite limited, and Pareko's out now, obviously. But older, slower, very committed to it, he somehow squeezed them all the way up to fourth in terms of fewest expected goals against allowed,

second and fewest inner slot shots allowed, and I'm curious for your take on what you've seen from them under Montgomery. I know you wrote about this in that Hockey Tactics book, but just kind of seeing how he, was able to come in in late November and over the past 40 games or so, I think pretty fundamentally change, at least their underlying numbers from the way they've played, but obviously leading to much better results as well. Yeah, and actually I spent like the better part of a week just watching St. Louis and trying

to figure out exactly what they're doing different. And just from my eye, like, there's really nothing groundbreaking. Like the biggest thing that I could point to was when initially, when Cam Fowler came in and all of a sudden made Colton Perrako much more functional defensemen and they started having better results at the top of the lineup. And then recently now we see that the top six looks a little bit different in terms of the player combinations. But actively, the biggest thing that I saw actually going back a couple of years is it seems

like St. Louis is now playing less aggressive in terms of activating their defensemen. And what used to happen was like I watch a St. Louis Blues game and like Justin, Justin Falk will be running up and down the ice. Like he'd be like a fourth forward and, you know, he would create something off the rush and then he would get caught deep in the zone and then the play with boom rang back and all a sudden it's like it's like a fire drill. But I think under Montgomery, they've gotten a little bit smarter with that and maybe dialed back the aggression so that again, you know, they don't have the fastest or the youngest

team by any means. And now when they get up ice, I think they do a better job of just not make any big mistakes, keeping the play in the offensive zone and just playing sort of a more poised or more calculated game as opposed to, I remember like the last year that Broube was there. Like you had defensemen activating on the breakout like crazy and to such an extent that like it was, it didn't really make sense. And now I think they're playing game that's a little bit more quiet, a little bit more cerebral and there's not as much back and forth, which I think serves this group at.

Yeah, more measured. I think in terms of putting players in a position to succeed, which is probably the most important job of an HL head coach. The foot speed for those blue lighters just doesn't allow them to get away with that type of playing style anymore in 2025. But the forward group is pretty fully to foot for the most part and highly skilled, especially in the top six and especially adding guys like Holloway this summer into that makes to go along with Thomas.

and Kairun and Bukhnevich and so on and so forth, putting more on their plate and on the break, I was just relying on them a bit more and then playing a bit more of a measured and balanced game. I think it's served them really well and it's probably the biggest reason or driver for those defensive roles results I mentioned. All right, Jack, let's take our break here. And then we come back.

We will jump back into where we're going to close all the show, talking a little bit more about your book and some of the most interesting takeaways you found in putting it together. You're listening to the Hocopi-Ocast streaming on the spring. Sportsnet Radio Network. All right. We're back here in the Hockey PEOCast, joined by Jack Kahn. Jack, we've been talking about it tangentially sort of so far, but I want to fully dive

into and use the rest of today's show to talk specifically about hockey tactics 2025. And in particular, some of the more interesting nuggets or I guess subjects or case studies that you went through and writing up every team and sort of their tendencies and stuff you found. What was the team that you found most interesting to dive into schematically in terms of what they've been doing and maybe one that surprised you compared to what you thought about them heading into the exercise. So I think the most interesting pattern I came across is actually two pairs of teams. And when we think about one of the best defensive teams or at least the best team without

the puck in the league, it's Carolina because of how good their forecheck is and how aggressive they are at closing down time and space, the team that does it the worst in the league right now, I would argue is Anaheim, and they actually play a very, very similar system, right, without the puck. And on the flip side, you know,

we talked about how good Colorado is when they have the puck and we all know sort of how much the San Jose sharks have been struggling with or without the puck. But those two teams, when they play in possession, they're very similar as well.

So the thing that I could really say after studying all 32 NHL teams is, again, the players make the difference. And it is possible that the very best and the very worst team in a certain category are actually trying to do the exact same things, which is a really fascinating conclusion to come to. Yeah. Execution is incredibly important on personnel ultimately is going to drive a lot of these results. You had an interesting note in there about the Devils and Sheldon Keith and E.R.1 there coming from Toronto. And I want to talk to you a little bit more about them because I think the offensive struggles, especially. you know, they've been actually scoring a fair amount.

I think they're averaging about three goals of games since Jack Hughes were now with Jasper Brat has really picked up the big burden offensively and carried them. But defensively, this season as a whole, you know, a lot of the issues they had last year in terms of becoming such a rush team that was just getting burned as soon as they lost the puck and was having a really tough time defending the rush. Sheldon keeps come in and they made some personnel changes certainly and maybe went too far in that direction, in my opinion, with some of the complimentary moves they made that's kind of hurt them offensively. But defensively, they're top 10 across the board in pretty much every

metric. Their fourth in goals against, ninth and expected goals against, fifth in slot shots. And it's been an impressive turnaround. It's kind of been the thing that's kept them afloat for a lot of the season while they have struggled every time the top line hasn't been out there. What are you seeing from them in terms of how they've accomplished it, how much of it is a coach versus the personnel, or how much of it is just, you know, the players themselves that have already been there changing or adjusting, I guess, the way they played, eliminating a lot of the stuff that wound up burning them last season. Yeah.

So, you know, I work with Sheldon for three years in the Maple Police organization. I was his video coach for that last year. And the thing that I've always noticed about his teams, then and now, is they've always been really good at preventing shots against, right? And even though he's had a reputation of being more of an offensive coach, of, you know, giving his top players a lot of leeway, the thing that he's really a stickler about is defensive habits and especially defensive habits coming back from the offensive zone. And, you know, you mentioned the devils last year, you know, offensively, grading off the rush

wasn't a problem for them, but when they lost the puck in the offensive zone, they didn't always do the right things, and that led to a lot of counter attacks against. And if you go back to Shell and Keeps history, whether it's the Devils now or the Leafs or the Marleys or even the Sue Greyhounds before that, his teams were very organized when working back

from the offensive zone, and that's really made a difference for them. I do wonder about the tradeoff, though, because in hearing you talk about that, I imagine guys like Andre Pallat and Eric Hala and their habits off the puck endear themselves to a coach like that. And so they wind up being thrust into more prominent roles atop the lineup. And then you watch Andre Pallat who's going to be 34 this off season. And as two years left at $6 million, although the salary itself drops down quite a bit.

I'm curious to see how they handle that and whether they adjust accordingly because as a result of it, they've had to use a guy like that on the top line with using Brad. and then you watch these devil's games and it's been just unbelievably frustrating how many pucks have been dying on a stick these beautiful passing plays that wind up finding him in the slot

he either doesn't get a shot off or misses the net and what that's leaving on the table. So obviously there's going to be a bit of a drop-off or a trade-off, I guess, in terms of risk-reward and offense and defense, but that's when I said that maybe they've gone too far recalibrated in that direction. I do wonder whether moving forward

and heading into next year, whether they're going to need to look at that a little bit more because I'm not sure that playing this way with that specific personnel is going to yield the results that they're ultimately looking for. I mean, I'd be curious to see what happens from here on end because when Jack Hughes was announced that he was going to miss the rest of the season,

my personal feeling was like, okay, well, you know, it's all over for them, but it seems like what, they're scoring more goals now than before. Well, Brat's been incredible. And they got it to a crazy back and forth with the penguins over the weekend. But possibly 220 minutes of 5-15 the season of L Jack Hughes, and they're generating 0.8 goals per hour,

which is unfathomable in today's game. So, yeah, I don't think they can continue relying on some of the guys they have been moving forward, especially next year when they're healthy and have legitimate Stanley Cup aspirations. Shelling Key's former team, the Leafs, Drans and I covered them quite a bit on the Sunday show yesterday in talking about their game on Saturday against, the Panthers, the game previous, or sorry, the game on Saturday against the

center is the game previously against the Panthers and kind of how the offense is dried up. At 5-1-5 in particular, you know, they're down into the 20s. And a lot of the metrics for the first time in the Matthews era, there's sub-50% in expected goals. And I think a lot of it has been framed as Craig Brubay coming in and this philosophical shift that the front office is accommodated, prepping them better for the playoffs, right? when things slow down, it becomes more difficult to attack off the rush and freely move around with the puck.

They've really simplified their game. They're dumping the puck in a ton. They're a pure North and South team. And they're hoping that I think some of the really untimely mistakes they've made in holding on the puck too long in the past and postseason settings are going to be removed from the game and they're going to be better off for it. And they may very well because the goaltending is quite good this year and the environment is better for them.

And so getting into a series against either Tampa Bay or Florida and round one, I'm curious to see what that looks like. But right now, especially with Matthews being limited offensively and not scoring up to his standards, in some of these games where they're down and they're pushing for offense, it's become pretty evident that they're lacking the type of offensive juice we'd expect from them. And probably to your point earlier,

the type that you need to actually move forward in the playoffs when teams that struggle like this offensively get eliminated pretty quickly. Yeah, I mean, you know, it almost sounds like a joke to me, but for me, it's super simple. You know, before the problem with Toronto was they couldn't score in the playoffs, and now they've made a lot of changes, and now they can't score in the regular season. Like that, that for me is the biggest difference. And the problem now is that there's not a lot of secondary scoring, and there's not a lot of sort of secondary playmaking, right?

And in the book, I was writing about sort of the philosophical difference in terms of roster decisions, right? Whereas before, especially early in the Dubaskeef administration, it was a lot of like skilled players in the bottom six, puck movers on the third pair. And, you know, those things had their downsides, right? Like, as you mentioned, when players turned the puck over in the playoffs, like the consequences are pretty immediate. but when but but what it did allow was for the team to really control play in the regular season and you know to control shot chair and to score a lot of goals now we don't have that kind of support and you know why is matthew struggling to score well not only is he finding some sort of an injury and by the way you know he's been injured early in his career um i don't think he hasn't played 82 games in a season uh since his rookie year so he's always missed games here and there but now he's now he doesn't have as much support as he used to. Like when you look at that back end, like who's going to be really,

who's going to be jumping into the play and get Matthews the puck aside from maybe Riley who slowed down a bit. Like there's really nobody on the back end who can activate as a week's ID and be a consistent out for Matthews on the breakout or be a consistent playmaker for Matthews off the rush. Up front, like, you know, on Twitter,

least fans got really mad at me a couple of months ago when I talked about Matthew Nyes, but really you look at the number of assists that Matthew Nyes has on Matthews' goals, like they're basically non-existent. Like the play is flowing from Austin Matthews and Mitch Marner toward Matthew Nyes in front of the net, and he's scoring on a good number of them,

but Nyes is really not creating a lot for his linemates, and he's not really helping them out as much defensively as maybe Zach Hyman did or even Michael Bunting did. So again, like, I'm not a fan of the direction that this team has gone in. You know, a very sort of close parallel I can draw is the 21, 22 Calgary Flames when Brad Tree Living was a GM there, very top heavy team with that Matthew Kachuk, Johnny Goddrow, and Elias Linholm line.

You know, how far did that team go in the playoffs? You know, they had a great goal in Jacob Markstrom. They had some good players on the back end. They had a very, very dominant top. line, but that wasn't enough. And this, I don't think this least team is even on that level. Yeah, the nice thing is interesting because in his age 22 season, he's on pace for 32 goals, but as you said, he's got five, five on five primary assists in 860 minutes, whereas Matthews, who scored 38, 26 and 38 515 goals the past three seasons has 12 in 51 games this year.

I, I'm curious to see how, you know, we'll see. see the seating, the Atlantic is still so tight. The Panthers and the Lightning defensively pose much different challenges against the Lightning. And we've seen this Leafs team for all their offensive struggles have success against Lightning offensively this season, I think in large part because that playing style of getting rid of the puck quickly, getting it deep in the zone, and forechecking works quite well against Tampa's really slow defensemen and they've forced a lot of turnovers from them. So that could potentially be a path for success. Whereas the Panthers

and their forecheck and pressure up the ice makes it more difficult and to attack off the rush and to sustain possession and maybe getting rid of it more quickly while it could lead into some of that. So those four check chances for the Panthers might insulate them a little bit better. So I'm kind of curious to see what it looks like, but I think right now the offense has been pretty ugly. A couple other teams that I wanted to run through with you here in the final couple minutes we have left. I want to talk about the Oilers, 5-1-5 scoring issues themselves.

I wanted to talk about the senators defensively and they're an improved play under Travis Green and I wanted to talk about the Capitals a bit. Which of those is most interesting to you? Let's give Ottawa some love. Let's do it. They've been playing really well. I think that they're 7.01 or something like that right now in March.

They're really solidifying their playoff spot and potentially even making a push that you get out of the wild card entirely and challenge some of these three Atlantic teams. And as you noted in your book, defensively, especially defending the rush, they've improved so much from your... is passed under Travis Green.

Now I think the personnel has improved defensively, bringing in Nick Jensen and Jake Sanderson's continued development and Shabbat playing much better with Jensen for the large majority of this season. But all of a sudden, they're 10th and goals against, 10th and expected goals against. And I think entirely flipped some of the underlying issues they had previously. So what are you seen from them? Well, they're just, their timing and their structure off the point. puck is just really good right now.

I mean, it's, you know, obviously two teams go in different directions, but, you know, it was a lot of what we could have said about Vancouver last year, which is new coach comes in, reasserts the importance of playing defense and playing tight as a group under some, you know, some measure of initial success. So right now, like Ottawa for me is going to be a really tricky team to meet in the first round for whoever gets them if they make the playoffs. The real sort of interesting thing for me is, you know, they may win around this year. They may even win too, but the most interesting thing for me is how does that change things

in the long term? Because, you know, in the immediacy, it's really good that they're able to put up all these, you know, these very much improved defensive metrics. But, you know, is that sustainable or is that sort of a very defensive, very tight way of playing, constricting and ends up burning out the players, you know, within 18 months. So certainly right now, I think it's, it'll be good to enjoy the success that they have and maybe the potential to, to go, go some ways in the playoffs. But in the long term, you know, is there a way for them to gradually build their offensive

identity as well? Because, you know, if you look at their five on five scoring, it's not good at all. And if they can just get to sort of league average and still maintain the defensive efficiency, then now we certainly have a consistent playoff. That is true. I think the trade they made of the deadline in flipping Josh Norris, who was not giving them anything offensively at 5.15 and to Dylan Cousins and playing in with Batherson has helped quite a bit. But I think that that's a point well taken.

I do think that we'll see who they ultimately draw in round one. But I'm with you that it's a pretty challenging matchup in terms of not giving you a lot of opportunities and being very frustrating to play against. Let's quickly, I wanted your take on, on the Oilers, 515 goal scoring. I've been talking a lot about how they're 27th this year in 515 shooting percentage, only the wild red wings, aforementioned senators, predators, and flames have been less efficient. And they're still getting their fair sure goals.

I think they're 10th and 515 goals per hour because they have absolute studs atop the lineup. They generate a lot of chances. but I feel like I've seen regression from them this season in terms of that offensive zone approach maybe partly personnel driven because they slow down quite a bit. They don't have as much talent on the wings. And so you're getting into these situations where Leandro Seidel's playing with Connor Brown and Corey Perry 5-on-5. And so they've gotten into some of the bad habits they had previously, especially in the Dave Tippett years, in my opinion,

of when they cycle the puck in the offensive zone, the decision-making by the defenseman has been overly simple. of instead of working it back down to those studs up front, just hammering it from the point, getting themselves into trouble that way. And so I don't know if you're concerned about it heading into the playoffs or whether it's something that is a bit of a blip. And with McDavid, especially not playing up to his standards, assuming that fixes itself that it won't be that much of an issue in the playoffs.

Yeah. I mean, from McDavid, maybe he's carrying something in terms of physical injury, but certainly, you know, the mental fatigue of going through the Four Nations and scoring the eventual game winning goal. Like that's something that we're going to have to be patient and maybe, you know, hopefully he's going to be sort of himself when the playoffs starts. But, you know, the weakness with this team has always sort of been a lack of speed and skill on the wing. I mean, at the start of the season, you know, they brought in Arvinson, they brought in Jeff Skinner. they haven't really been sort of the solutions that it's hoped.

Like it was a right idea in my opinion, but it's just it hasn't worked out that way. And playing dry sidle, who, you know, for my money is an MVP candidate with Connor Brown and Corey Perry at this point. And him still being able to score and drive play for me, like that's remarkable. And maybe it's sort of a reasoning for, again,

playing dry saddle and McDavid together. Because when they play together, at least one of them is going to be out wide and able to win those one-on-ones. But as it stands right now, it's still a very good team to have some of the best players in the world. You know, they're still driving play, but it's just this lack of speed on the wing is going to make it difficult to score against tight check and competition. I agree with that. All right, Jack, we're going to get out of here. I'm going to give you a chance here to plug the book, let the listeners know about it, what they can expect from it.

and where they can get their hands on it. We did a giveaway contest last week in the PioCast Discord, which was really fun. You were very generous in giving away three free copies to our listeners. I've already heard back of what a great resource it is, how much they're enjoying it. I think we're going to get together. We do so every year before the start of the postseason before round one,

where me, you and our pal J. Fresh, get together and do a full breakdown of every playoff series. The book is a tremendous resource for that in, in familiarizing yourself with team tendencies, how that's going to look like in a playoff matchup in terms of strengths and weaknesses lining up. Let the listeners know all about that.

So after I stop coaching at the HL level, every year I've been putting out a sort of a guide to NHL team's tactics. This year it's called Hockey Tactics 2025. It's 294 pages on a PDF format with diagrams of every single team's offensive and defensive systems. It's a great sort of cheat sheet. If you're a fan, if you're a player, if you're a coach,

you want to learn more about how NHL teams play the game. You know, no BS, no filter. I just tell you the way it is. And for me, for my money, it's the best resource out there. My money as well. Good stuff, man. Really enjoying myself and really diving into it the past couple days. My plug's here.

As I said on the Sunday show, we're going to be taking a quick little break here using this window between the end of the trade deadline and the start of the playoff push to take a little break. I'm going to Hawaii for nine days. I'm going to get some sun recharge a little bit. It's been an awesome stretch for not only the league, but the show here. We've been granking out a ton of content. So the best way for the listeners to keep up with further programming updates and latest scheduling news is to just join the PDOCast Discord. Get in there. We'll still be going strong in our absence. And then we come back. we'll really be diving in. I'm going to be taking the 18th to the 27th off. We're going to have two hours on tap on the 28th when I'm back here on the show. You can help us out by not only joining the PidoGess Discord, but by smashing the five-star button and leaving us a nice little review.

And that's going to be all from us today. We'll see you back here on the 28th for the stretch run. We'll have a lot to catch up on. In the meantime, if you're bored, looking for content, go get yourself, the Hockey Tactics, 2025, read it, and come back better for it. Enjoy all the hockey over the next week. And thank you for listening to the Hockey PDOCast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.