The Hockey PDOcast - Takeaways From the NHL’s Return to Action This Weekend Following the Break

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Thomas Drance to talk about the NHL's return to action from the Four Nations break, and all of the things that stood out to them in those games this weekend. 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 Filippovin. Welcome to the HockeyPedocast. My name is Dmitra Filippovich and joining me for our Sunday special remotely from a hotel room in Utah is my good buddy Thomas Jans. Tom, what's going on, man? Hello, Salt Lake City. Hey, I saw the Utah Jazz play at the Utah Jazz, the Utah Hockey Club, the unnamed 30-second NHL team. It was the only barn I hadn't been to. uh in the league at the moment so that was like really a motivating reason for my trip and i had to see my guys the utah hockey club i have so much stock in their rush attack and honestly it was not a particularly exciting game although i like the atmosphere was really good i was i was pretty

worried as warm up start uh warm up started there wasn't a ton of bodies and seats but by the time the anthems were playing. The building was packed. You had some scattered USA chance. I heard like a conversation. I overheard a conversation, two guys at a urinal. And one guy was like, man, these guys are all so big. It's like a bunch of tight ends on the ice.

And I was just like, yes, hopefully this is some four nations face off spillover as Americans embrace hockey. So, I mean, hey, Utah's absolutely in the thick of the playoff race with a regulation victory over Vancouver there. four-point swing for them. And, man, I mean, look, it wasn't a good game and the Canucks played poorly in it. But here's the truth of what happened tonight. Arter Shilov's was excellent.

And without Quinn Hughes in the lineup, the three best skaters on the ice all played for Utah. Yep. And like, that's it. Like, you know, I don't, we don't have to get too much deeper into it than that. I just asked you a simple question of how it's going. I didn't expect. Oh, yeah, it's going on. Sorry, I'm going on.

You came out hot. No, I love that. I mean, listen, I was excited for your first trip to the Delta Center as well. What was the lighting like in there? Because I think when you watch people watching at home, it's always a bit dingier than a lot of other ranks. But I'm sure it's not that way actually live in the building. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't in any way track the, maybe it's like the old, remember the old SAP Center lighting when you turned into sharks games? And it was like, oh, sick, I get to listen to Han and Drew Remenda.

you know, like the best play-by-play team and we get to watch Dan Boyle and Joe Thor. And then the game looked like it was, I don't know, being lit by halogens or something. So maybe it's just one of those things where they haven't done like the full NHL update, given the hastiness with which the Utah hockey club, you know, like the no-name brand hockey team that relocated to Utah on a pinch. I assume the upgrades will come, whether it's to this building or the next. And, you know, the lighting live was not notable. They don't have a hockey press box, though. So I'm watching basically from like, you know, a loge in the 100s.

So a much different view than I'm used to. That was really the big difference was it's very bare bones there from a media coverage experience standpoint. But, you know, they've done their best and it was good all around. It's just, you know, you can still see the seams a bit in terms of, yeah, like they are absolutely brand spanking new to the NHL. But I mean, I like that team, man. They had a lot of rush opportunities. They could have buried the Canucks on one of three breakaways at any point.

But, you know, they hung around. They get a Gunther goal laid on the power play. Cooley had some exceptional moments showing extreme juice. And, you know, I think Clayton Keller's one of those guys. Like, we got to be watching because, you know, like, is there any doubt that he could have helped Team USA in a fourth line role at the tournament we just watched last week? Like, I don't think so. Yeah.

No question he could have. Yeah. I think the crowd's been impressive generally in watching their home games and it was again tonight, especially considering it is year one. It is easier one. So you expect some certain level of kind of like shining you toy novelty. But they've struggled at home surprisingly, right? even after today's win, there's still 10, 12, and 6 at home.

So it's not like they've really been delivering for the home crowd. They've been, as we've documented, a frustrating young team and that they take a ton of penalties generally, and they did so tonight again. And they've blown a lot of one goal games where they probably could have squeezed at least one point out of it. But the fans have been sticking strong. So it's pretty exciting. I don't want to spend too much time on that game, even though it is fresh on our minds because you were just there. And we just watched it as the last game on Sunday evening. But I do love this developing bit of that.

Dylan Gunther quickly establishing yourself as a Canucks killer where it seems like every time they play, he scores a goal and he scored the game winning goal today is a big one as well. So I mean, he's going to be a lot of team killers moving forward because I expect him to score a lot of goals, not just against the Canucks, but it's a delicious bit of irony. All right. So I do want to just note on Gunther, there's a there was some really funny moments from him away from the puck. tonight. In particular, he got tagged by Marcus Pedersen on his very first shift, and you could see him visibly take the number. And then he tried to run Marcus Pedersen on his next shift,

and Pedersen, like, did a little hop skip and kind of ducked it. And he absolutely mashed the boards. But a couple shifts later, he finally had his chance. And you could just see, like, he was so excited to land the hit. I just love seeing little things like that from a guy who I think once he, you know, is really a man in this league as opposed to a very promising young player. Once he's a fully formed version of what he's going to be and he's already great. But I mean, I expect him to be even better, obviously, going forward than he is right now. I think he's got the stuff. But yeah, just like little things like that, little moments like that,

I like to see that from a power forward type player because it tells you, you know, he has a good sense of the weight that he's able to throw around on that sheet. Well, that's the thing. Obviously, he's going to get stronger as he gets into his mid-20s. He already has a bit of that edge to his game. It's going to take him a bit of time and I think figure out like just his body and how to use it at this point of his career. But I think that's going to be a certain element to his game. We just start referring to him officially as Team Canada, 2026 Olympic representative, Dylan Gunther. Because we started talking about that. You got any other notes on because you did the you've been the road dog here this weekend. You did the doubleheaders. We noted in Vegas and Utah. You got any other? notes from your travels or do you want to kind of bounce around the league and talk about some other

observations as the league returns here to action from the four nations break um you know i think i mean i saw vegas pretty handily outplayed the canucks as well i think the thing that i'm looking at with vegas you know i think we all expect them just because we're so conditioned to it to do something big right to add like a big scoring winger which i do think they need as much talent as they have. And yet they don't have a ton of stuff to sell at this point. And so one thing that I was kind of looking at was, you know, they had Corsack, the right-handed defender 2019 second round pick in their lineup against Vancouver.

And I thought he looked really good. Like I thought he had a really strong game. And that sort of brings me to the question of when Vegas considers how do we actually build a package that someone would consider attractive if we were acquiring X scoring winger, which we need, you know, could Corsack be in it? Or alternatively, a player like Nick Hague it becomes something that maybe they can consider if they think Corsac can be a regular for them down the line. Because I think he can't. I mean, there's no reason he couldn't. He's got the profile. He's got the pedigree. He's got the speed. He's got the defensive chops. I thought he had a really

nice composed game against the Canucks. And, you know, I was watching him with sort of that thought process, um, sort of square in my mind was like, is this guy at a level where he'd interest other teams, I think for sure, given that he's cost controlled and right handed and big and young. But is he at the level where you could actually trade an even better player because you've got him, right? That was sort of one thing that I was watching that Vegas performance on Saturday night and thinking is like a top of the top of mind. consideration. He's following the footsteps of a former Vegas Golden Knights grade, Braden Pocall, as your, as your random friend. That's my guy. Golden Knights defenseman shout out. No, I think that's interesting. I want to, I've got a new guy that I'm definitely

going to blood as we, as we move to talk about the Washington capitals. So I'm looking forward to that too. I love that. Orzac is not going to be my weirdest poll today. I was going to bring up, I was going to talk a little bit of Amico Ranton because we heard Elliot Freeman talking about him on on this Saturday night's hockey night in Canada intermission break. But I don't want to step too much on our toes. We are doing our massive annual trades we'd like to see next Sunday. So maybe that's a bit of a tease here. But when you were talking about a scoring winger for Vegas,

I think a lot of people are drawing that line in between the two. All right. So the NHL, as we said, return to action this weekend after the Four Nations break. I think my general takeaway was, first off, it was really nice just to have a bunch of games on both these days. I'd miss that after having just won and a bunch of days off over the past two weeks. I think it was to be expected. I think my general summary of it is it looked like the first week of the regular season.

October hockey, yes. Incredibly sloppy. We saw a bunch of teams put up crooked scoring numbers on the board, a bunch of like 8, 2, 83 games this weekend. And so I think that's to be expected, right? They just resumed practicing a couple days ago. They had taken extended time. A lot of these players going to the beach.

kind of unwinding so it's understandable but i think that was kind of my general takeaway there was just a lot of weird sloppy games um there weren't really representative of like a general game 60 or an hl regular season it felt much more like game two or three um but i think we should have probably expected that yeah we got a weekend anyway of october hockey in late february and you know to some extent that's fun i mean we're used to seeing teams get more and more structured as we go more and more serious as the stakes ramp up. And, you know, I think I was nervous about a gear down from a watchability perspective coming out of the Four Nations. And, and look, it was, but it was also sloppy with lots of mistakes and lots of offense. And that kind of cushion the blow, I think pretty materially,

to be honest with you. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. You know, something you and I have been really interested in and we talked about this a lot when we did our postgame of the Four Nations final was this idea of like the tournament itself having a longer lasting impact moving forward for the rest of this season on some of the young players that were involved and we talked about uh dylan larkin and the ottawa senators uh pair of players that played for team usa certainly thomas harley drew dowdy drew dowdy yeah let's add him to the list um the washington capitals though and this is uh you mentioned this earlier i want to talk about them because they notably didn't have a single representative in the tournament, which was, I think, somewhat surprising,

considering how successful they've been this season, but maybe speaks to the fact that, you know, it's such a well-balanced lineup and the depth and everything. We've highlighted throughout this season, but they didn't have anyone to play. And they had this back-to-back this weekend where they put 15 goals up on the Pittsburgh Penguins and then the Edmonton Oilers. And the Penguins are where they are at this point. But I think that performance on Sunday and the second of a back-to-back at home against the Oilers really caught my attention because the Oilers had struggled the day before in Philly.

And I think we've seen from them that when they have those types of performances, you generally see a massive bounce back where Carter McDavid and Leon Drecyl are like, all right, we're going to stop this right here. It's not going to happen again. And they scored the early goal. Dreisaito scored. And you're like, all right, it's going to happen. And then as the game progressed, Washington did what they've been doing pretty much this entire season,

which is they just took over. They were generating rush chance after rush chance. And they really took it to them. And it wound up being a pretty one-sided affair. And I don't think that should be surprising either that this team that just had their entire team get essentially, what, 13 straight days off or whatever, looks pretty well rested and ready to go following the break. But man, I continue to be so impressed with them. And I thought that, you know, we should talk about them a little bit here today as we recap the week because those two performances kind of stuck out to me. yeah i mean the capitals first of all i thought ovi looked i think the break might have mattered a ton for ovechkin who last we saw him was looking like

you know one of those older strikers that can still get it done in the box but maybe can't help in terms of the press right or or can be passed around um at times you know i i thought there was a noticeable uptick in his pace coming off of this break. Like I, I wonder how seriously he took it from, from what we saw this weekend. I suspect he took it very seriously. Like I think in terms of, you know, recovering from that significant leg injury that he dealt with earlier this season that sort of postponed that record chase, you know, and, and obviously just the age and, you know, the style of player that he is, frankly, right? Like, I thought, the pace had become one of those things where he was still effective at what he did,

but I wondered how much he could hang against elite competition. And we talked about it at length a couple weeks ago or maybe a month ago now. You know, I feel like coming out of this break and watching him play this weekend, it just felt like the two weeks off to just like work out, hang out, rest up, put some more time between him and when he, you know, last got hurt. I felt like he might be one of the beneficiaries that I hadn't really considered. So in addition to sort of the depth that they have, the exceptional job that Dubois did on McDavid in that Oilers game,

you know, Chickeren continued continuing to shoot the lights out. McMichael having some game breaking moments. Like I honestly thought, and not just because he had the hat trick, more his play away from the puck and the pace that he was able to muster, it just felt like a very different Ovechkin than the one that I saw live, you know, five weeks ago in Washington.

And he put up on it, he could have easily scored five goals in that game. I think like his two best chances in that game, he didn't even wind up scoring on. He still had the hat trick. You mentioned PLD there. And I wanted to give him some love because in that game, he played 13, 13, 13 at 515. 1130 of that 1313 was head to head against Connor McDavid at even strength. And in that time, shots on goal were 4-1, Washington and high-danger chances were 3 to 1 for Washington, and this is an extension of the season he's been having in general. But in a year where

I think it's pretty open, especially for like the Selke, for example, I'm not sure because of the baggage and the reputation, he's going to get enough attention that he deserves because of that. But you look season long the way they've been using them. The defensive zone starts, he eats up, how they use him as the matchup guy head to head. He's been phenomenal and he did that again in this one. And then after the game, Spencer Carberry was talking about that as well. But I just, I just thought he was magnificent in this game. And that raises an interesting question for the caps as we look ahead, right? Because considering they're first in the East and they're having this magical season, I think the natural sort of next topic of discussion for them is going to be,

what are they going to do with the trade deadline, right? And we already saw them earlier, acquire Lars Eller as kind of like a depth piece from Pittsburgh early in the season. It's a tricky question and answer for them because I think the barrier to entry is so high for this lineup, right? It's not like your typical contender that's top heavy where you're like, oh, man, a third pair of defenseman or a bottom six grinder would be a massive boost compared to what they already have. That's not what we're working with here, especially with the realistic possibility of Ryan Leonard stepping in once the NCAA season is done and giving them bottom six minutes that is probably going to be better than any player that you're going to acquire at the deadline.

I think it's a fascinating one. As we've spoken about any player they acquire at this point, I'm going to be high on because they've proven themselves from their pro scouting that they're probably going to have a good evaluation and bring in a guy that they can get the most out of. But it's a tricky thing to answer in terms of whether you just ride with the vibes you have right now and don't mess with a good thing or whether you use this as an opportunity to say, all right, well, all of a sudden, we're in a pretty good spot.

Let's just take a home run cut here and see if we can actually turn this into postseason success as well. yeah well i think the thing because just to come back to pld quickly but in the context of of what this means for them going forward like one thing about dubois is whether or not he can get into the selky conversation or not you know we know because we've seen it that dubois is one of those guys who has additional defensive value in part because they're permitted to interfere with guys right because they're allowed to defend in in sort of a different way as especially when the chips are down come playoff time. And in Dubois's case, he's got that mean streak, right?

He's got the ready-made cross-checks. Like, he can leave you both black and blue over the course of a seven-game series and, you know, treat you like you're the boat and he's the water skier when you're trying to get through the neutral zone with speed. And he can do so without getting called for it typically. Just because while he may not have the voters respect due to recent memories of, of what it looked like in Winnipeg or toward the tail end of his time in Winnipeg

and in L.A. for sure. You know, I still think he has that, well, this guy's been around. He plays tough. He plays the right way. I guess that respect from the officials. You know, so I mean, the sort of Selky conversation to me is almost besides the point. What I felt like the McDavid,

the head to head versus McDavid performance sort of reminded me of is just like, what an X factor he can be at the heaviest time of year. right and and i think that's an interesting wrinkle to consider here is as good as he's been for that team this season we're kind of not um at the point of the year yet where where dubois typically is you know uh invaluable effectively and you know the the other thing that i was sort of thinking about with washington because we're going to hear a lot of talk now about like the Washington rebuilding model, right?

Like how can you emulate the success that Washington had? And so I'm curious, I'm going to present this as a question to you, Dim, but at what point do they actually, should they in fact not be considering buying like a conventional seller because they're, you know, have 84 points and everyone else's 10 points back of them except Winnipeg? Yeah. But instead continue on the path that brought them here. by considering a hybrid approach with their team.

Yeah, I think that I think that's certainly a viable option for them. I think they could go any number of directions. Everything's worked so well for them. So you could take it from two angles, right? You could say, all right, we don't want to mess with it. Or you could say like, all right, well, let's just keep doubling down on this. Because everything we touched turns to gold, so let's just keep trying to do it. I do think that the reason why I brought up the PLD season in particular here is because

if you look at their usage, Nick Dow is going to just start like every shift in the defensive zone, right? But I think PLD's emergence here and the role he's played on this team has allowed them to use him as kind of a matchup guy against the other team's top line, and then you're going to have the Nick Dow

defensive zone starts on top of that. And so they're going to shelter the Obetchkin line, certainly, right? And so he's playing with Strom. They kind of mix up that right-wing, or whether it's Tom Wilson or Alexi Protis, but those guys are going to get very skewed, offensive zone starts, I do wonder whether that third line is the area to target for them, right?

Like I love Mangi Apani. Ethan Frank's giving them some juice as well. He's a phenomenal skater. But I do wonder whether it's like going for a big center that just has more offensive pop than a Lars L.R. For example, would be the way to go here because not only does it give you another weapon, but that's also a line then that you can use in offensive situations as well and maybe maximize that or optimize that line a little bit more because it's been freed up because

I think generally, you know, teams use their top two lines for offensive situations and their bottom two lines for defensive ones. But in this case, because of PLD and Dowd, I think that third line is a potential area where they could upgrade. Yeah. So Ethan Frank was the guy that I wanted to debut as like the newest dude that I'm in on. He's 27. Like he's a UFA after this year. And he's got 20 and 8 in like 35 AHL games. The late bloomer out of the NCAA, but the moment he hit the American League,

he was, you know, he profiled as one of those like guys who plays with some dog in them and, and can score, like has meaningful scoring touch. Now, he's shooting the lights out in the NHL this season. I mean,

I think it's 20 plus percent shooting clip. So he's very much on that capitals bender kick. at the moment. So some buyer beware on that, but it's not like new for him, right? Like in the A, in the Calder Cup playoffs last year on and on, like this guy's meaningfully scored. And, and I love, like, he's got some of that. He's got some of that, you know, I hesitate to bring up a player this much higher end than he is, but he's got some of that, you know, John Cooper trio style to his game in terms of like the pace, the back. battle winning and then also enough skill to actually punish the mistakes you make.

I don't know, man. I would, I would be very reluctant if I was the caps to mess with a good thing. I mean, look, if you can find a centerman with some offensive juice that, that's an upgrade, that's a meaningful upgrade over Lars Eller.

Sure, I'm certainly open to it. But, you know, I look up and down this lineup. And, you know, I'm at the point where I'm even looking at guys like Ethan Frank and being like,

hey, man, I feel like an enterprising team should be strongly considering, you know, trying to make him like their key for Sherwood this summer, right? Like two years, 1.2 million for Ethan Frank and the whole world loses their mind. But that's like exactly the sort of deal that I feel like 28 NHL teams should be jumping over themselves to try and execute. I mean, he'd be like Colorado's fifth best forward. So.

Yeah. Yeah. He'd be Vancouver's third best goal score. Like, let's go. I'm down. Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure we'll talk more about this cap scene, but I thought that their performance out of this play was particularly notable.

Yeah, I didn't think about it. Man, I know they acquired Eller this season and he's been provided utility for them. But I was just thinking because they've also done this thing, right, where they're like kind of like zagged almost and just acquired and assembled a bunch of giant human beings along the way. And it's like, oh, man, imagine if you just turned that third line center role, into someone like a Brock Nelson, for example. And you just added like another massive center except with actual scoring pop

and then you're playing that guy with Frank and Mangiopani and giving them some offensive zone starts and just having another lethal finisher to throw into this mix because they're going to have to do it by depth, right? And I think that's part of why you and I, many others have been somewhat skeptical about what this means for their postseason outlook, right?

Because you're going to get into a situation where it's not as much of an advantage to be able to roll four lines. and you look at the way to distribute their minutes, and especially those three centers in Strom, PLD, and Dowd, they're all pretty much playing identical 5-15 ice time this season. And so if you're going to keep going that way, it's going to be difficult at this point to match the pure high-end star power

of some of the other teams they're going to have to get through. But I'd almost consider just keep going even further in this direction, strengthening a strength by just adding another guy to solidify the four lines even more and just create even more scoring options. So we'll see. They might be honestly hesitant to par with any significant future capital because they've done such a good job of drafting and cultivating talent from that. So I had to totally understand that too.

Well, what I'm curious about is like we all thought that Charlie Lingren deal was done weeks ago. And it seems like that's obviously not been announced, not been confirmed. He's expiring. They've already done Thompson. and they've got, I don't think either of their American League numbers are especially good at the moment. But, you know, they have a couple of guys in Clay Stevenson and Hunter Shepard in the American League that have had excellent runs for them in the Calder Cup playoffs over the past two years or have been really reliable American League goalies. And certainly in, in Stevenson's case, you know, actually have meaningful NHL pedigree. Stevenson's also signed to a one-way deal beginning next season.

So, you know, if you were going to go after a guy, like, you know, to pick a lower end version of Brock Nelson, like a Jake Evans, right? If you were like trying to take, like, wouldn't it be a caps like move to be like, okay, we signed, we made our choice in goal. We have goalie depth. Let's get assets for Lingren. And then let's use those assets to buy a long term fit in a 28 year old right handed centerman, you know, who's a pretty good bet to. give us 35 plus points in a third line role going forward in like a player like a Jake Evans. And in sort of that manner, like isn't that, isn't that the McClellan playbook from the last two years, but applied to a higher stakes situation where everyone looks at them as a team that

should be a pure buyer? Like, why would you mess with your goalie depth? And it's like, well, because we can. And because we're going to play this long game of just winning on the margins and adding incremental value in everything we do because, hey, that's what worked out for us. What do you think of this? Should I save this for the trades we'd like to see episode next week? Have I mowed my own lawn dim? No, I like it. This is all an organic plug for what's to come.

I mean, you mentioned rant, and I still, I'd be pretty surprised if he was moved by the trade deadline. It would just seem like if anyone was going to do it, it probably would be the hurricanes. But it just so counter to what we see from the NHL. But if they decided really like, all right, there's no long-term path here. He doesn't want to stay. We're going to pivot here on the fly. I think the capitals would be a very intriguing team for that as like taking a cut, but they also have a lot of guys that they could conceivably move, right?

Whether it was, I mean, you wouldn't even need to do a third team for Lingren because I'm sure the hurricanes would love Charlie Lingren, but you could try to upgrade on Mangiopani and give them a look at him. So many different directions you could go, but I feel like the capitals would be speaking of just adding a giant who's like generally has historically broken expected goals models in terms of his efficiency offensively, I feel like that would be an unbelievable double down on what's made them so special this year.

Yeah, I mean, they'd literally have more size than the Wizards. They'd be the biggest team in Washington sports. It would be incredible. I'm here for it. I love that. I've gone through such a, and I think people have noticed this, but like there was a stretch where it was like

all about the undersized, underappreciated players, right? And now I'm like, I just love big dudes who rock. And so it's the captain. are perfect, I think, a cancellation of that. So I was, I actually was having this conversation with Ray Ferraro this week. Name drop, Ray Ferraro and I were having this conversation this week, where we were talking about,

we were talking about the Four Nations basically, right? And the Jack Hughes performance, right? And then, you know, the sort of, I was basically doing my whole bit about how Gunther and Fantilli and maybe byfield if he can bounce back offensively are going to be like really important for team Canada in in Milan because Canada needs to find its answer to Matt Boldie. And what Ray was suggesting was the Four Nations was played at such high pace with so many guys that are six two. It's just they're also elite skaters, right?

Like you're getting to this moment in the NHL where like small guys need not apply. in part because the speed edge that the small guys have had no longer exists now there's all these big bodied guys who are massive right um who can all fly and that that's sort of changed the dynamic that like you you've almost seen the pendulum swing like the because the young player or because the small players were so much faster and it became this speed arms race across the last decade in the n hl uh in order to survive you know all these you know, big project players with massive wheels, in addition to massive frames, sort of became on vogue and became, you know, the mid-round picks, and on and on and are now being rewarded and bet on and given opportunities and develop differently. And as such, you get sort of the pendulum swinging back. I just thought it was an interesting framing from, from Reins and something that I think you're hitting on there. That makes a lot of sense. I will say, though, the Jack Hughes defender has logged on

because I've seen a lot, him catching a lot of flack for his Four Nations performance. And I mean, if you watch him even at his best on the devils, there's times where he's just like falling for no reason and losing the puck and sometimes getting muscle off the puck. And you're like,

oh man, this is like, this is my concern. We spoke in the first meeting against Canada and the round robin, right? Like how upon second viewing when you actually just like, examine him really closely, you come to appreciate the defensive effort

that him and Austin Matthews have. And I think similar thing applies to Matthews, although he was more visible offensively in that final against Canada. But like they fully bought in to what Mike Sullivan and Team USA was trying to do in their route to victory in terms of the defensive structure and using their skating to pressure and support and closed lanes and all of that. And I thought he excelled at that. And then he was sort of the biggest victim of what happened in that final game after Matthew Kuchuk got hurt because their bed shortened. And then all of a sudden he was playing with like J.T. Miller and Brock Nelson. It was just guys who couldn't keep up with them. And you wouldn't be able to create offensively against Team Canada.

And so he just came under fire for that. He's got one assist in four games. So I'm not trying to say that he was his prolific self. But I also think like just I think viewing it that way is a bit too superficial or kind of base level for me. I feel like there was more nuance to it. For sure. And more than anything, it was more about the pendulum swinging. it was just the huge thing was sort of a jumping off point.

Yes. For a wider discussion about, you know, the sort of evolution effectively, this like speed arms race that has now become a speed and size arms race as the league sort of, you know, reacts and then has a counter reaction to some, basically 10 years of hockey evolution that sort of brought us back to. where we were, but at warp speed. Yep. All right, let's take our break here.

And then when we come back, we'll close up this edition of the Sunday special. You're listening to the Hockey P.D.Ocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right. We're back here on the Hockeyedoghast for our Sunday special with our pal. Ray Fraro's close personal friend, Thomas Drans. Tom, what's going on? You know, excited to get back into this conversation and drop some more names. Let's go.

I love it. It's the second best name drop on the PDOC guest this year after Kevin Woodley was talking about his, his conversation with Andre Basilewski and made it seem like they were close pals who chop it up all the time. All right. We got like 15 or so minutes left here. I wanted to talk about both the Oilers, because we talked about the Caps and their win over Edmonton on Sunday. And I've got a few questions for you about the Oilers, but I also want to talk about the Rangers as well because I think that they're two performances. performances this weekend were highly alarming and maybe an extension of what we spoke about when we did our four nations recap, right? Where we talked about the biggest reasons why Team USA fell short against Canada and it felt like it could essentially be summarized to New York's players and their performance in that game. And then you watch the way they played this weekend where they start out in Buffalo at some point in that first period, Buffalo had five goals already. and the Rangers at four shots on goal. And then they came back and they wound up winning in the third period

on the second of the back-to-back on Sunday in Pittsburgh. But I believe shots on goal were like 30 to 6 for the penguins at one point in the second period. And this is kind of in the wake of them having traded a future first-round pick this year's top 13 protected, which if they don't make the playoffs and it falls within that range, all of a sudden becomes one of the most intriguing assets in the entire league heading into next year as a potential unprotected first round pick

with someone at the top of the board that's considered a generational talent based on what he's been doing this season. Did you see his goal today? Or did you see his setup today? He's unbelievable. I mean, what is unbelievable. What Gamakana is doing is preposterous. And so everyone's going to be lining up for that.

And that's going to be a big topic of discussion next year, I'm sure. But yeah, yeah, watching those two games and then the struggles. and I think just kind of piggybacking off what we talked about, right? Like, I think Adam Fox is much better than he showed in the Four Nations, but he clearly struggled and kind of stuck out like a sore thumb on in the midst of that entire blue line that they had in terms of his ability to play at that pace. Mika Zabenejazz continued struggles and how bad he looked for Sweden that tournament.

J.T. Miller scored the big goal for them, and I think he's fine. Like even for Team USA, he made some big defensive plays and was at least serviceable, but overextended, say. The thing with J.T. Miller, in my view anyway, is if he'd been an acquisition for a team that needed to, that needed help converting more efficiently, but had a baseline ability to control play, I think that would have been a great fit.

Like, you couldn't have designed a better fit for an L.A. or a Carolina, right? those teams that have their own sort of engines. What I don't think Miller is a good fit for is if you need a guy to like hold up a creaky edifice structurally. You know, I think that's asking too much of him given where his two-way game has been this season. And frankly, for most of the last five years with the exception of, you know, his incredible 20, 23, 24, right?

Like I think the, there were fits where I thought Miller could put, really strong two-way teams and like give them an extra gear. But I think what the Rangers needed is like a guy to, you know, they needed Atlas to like hold up, hold things up for them from a two-way perspective. I think that's just asking too much of them. And the Rangers already have the efficient finishers. So yeah, I mean, look, the Rangers are a great, like you could not manufacture a better profile of team to bet against if you were holding this type of asset.

you know, I think it's already one of the most intriguing futures assets around. ironic that, you know, Kyle Dubus came under public fire for his rebuilding sort of effort. Three weeks ago, he made what could be. It's not guaranteed to be. But he did find a way to turn, you know, Marcus Pedersen and Drew O'Connor, two players who I like a lot, but they're not a fit for where Pittsburgh's going at this point, especially given that they were expiring. Vancouver is now extended both. but they didn't make sense for where Pittsburgh was at in their sort of team building cycle.

And he turned it into an asset that, yeah, look, it's probably an average first. But it could be an awful lot more than that. And that's the sort of pull a rabbit out of a hat asset. Like, that's exactly what the penguins need right now, given where they're at. If they didn't own the Rangers first rounder, by the way, I think their loss today would have been like the perfect ethical tank. loss from the penguin's perspective where it's like play really well structurally sound can't quite get it done um unfortunately they actually had skin in the game today and you know hurt their own cause by by ultimately falling in regulation to a rangers team that look i still think is in a

world of trouble here especially given you know i know ottawa loss to montreal but i mean i think that team is la kings east in terms of the quality of their defensive game uh i think columbus has juice to burn. And, you know, as much as I think people often scoff when Detroit gets brought up, like, oh, well, how can the, well, I mean, Detroit has Larkin, who's prime aged at the very least, right? I mean, and Raymond. Like, yeah, well, and Raymond, but in Larkin, like, Larkin's three years younger than most of those Rangers forwards we're talking about, plus Raymond, plus like some outs in terms of having more upside. Like, you know, guys like Edvenson, right? Guys like, you know, Casper and company who could

finish the error as sort of better versions of themselves than what we've seen to this point in the season. Like, they still have outs and more outs, I think, than the Rangers do in terms of pieces that could just like suddenly turn it on or level up down the stretch here. So, you know, I think the Rangers are in tough despite pulling it out in Pittsburgh on Sunday. And I think this weekend, I mean, I don't know how you see this weekend and don't come out of it, sort of appreciating the, you know, the far from assured but high magnitude value that Dubus was able to mine from his role in the two-part J.T. Miller trade. It was an ethical tank for the penguins, except for the fact that anyone watching.

realized that it was just a dreadfully played game featuring two abominable. Both ways? Yes. Yeah, you know, just continuing with a theme, right? Like, takeaways, lessons from Four Nations, what it could mean moving forward, what kind of an indicator could be,

kind of ties into what you were saying before the break there, talking about the role of size and how maybe the pendulum swung in terms of just general skating around the league, having improved so much that it's less of an advantage for some undersized players, I really feel like

what we saw from that tournament and in particular, the games involving Team USA and Team Canada, is the future of the game, right? We talked about how it's like hockey played at its purest form in terms of the pace and competitiveness and physicality and all that good stuff and the energy and the fact that,

what, five of their top six paid players moving forward completely look like a fish out of water in that type of environment would be incredibly alarming moving forward. So let's talk about the Oilers a little bit, real quick. Okay. So TNT's Chris Shremski

had a really interesting tweet that I wanted to read to you. They're now one, eight and two this season against teams who are in the top two in their own division. Now, and that's obviously not including the Pacific so the other seven teams because they are one of the top two teams in their own division.

But so this is kind of a recurring theme of struggling against elite competition or really good teams. Gave up, what, 13 goals in the two games to the Philadelphia Flyers and Washington Capitals. By the way, in watching the first of those two in Philly, Matt Van Mitchcock was unbelievable in that game. And I have this theory, you know, we're talking about something like you're talking about Ovechkin and how he used that break to work out. and like get his body right for the stretch run. I do wonder whether guys like Mitch Cove, I talked about this recently about like a Marco Casper for the Red Wings, some rookies who haven't really experienced the grind of an 82 game season before

and what it takes in the NHL to have this sort of reset where you get two weeks to like just recover a little bit and start feeling young again. I wonder if guys like that are going to benefit as well from this moving forward in the final 25 games and avoid any sort of like rookie downturn that we sometimes see as a season progresses. But back to the Oilers, a lot of the same, I think, concerns that maybe we've had for a long time now, but we are reaching a point where you do need to start having a few answers. This is a team that still, as we've documented throughout the entire season, is still being

valued and treated as the prohibitive Stanley Cup favorite by the market. And I think understandably so, of take a drink their fastball. But watch those games and the defensive breakdowns and the goal tending as well. And what a unique situation it is because I do think Stuart Skinner is perfectly fine and probably good enough on this team to win a Stanley Cup. But even as we saw last postseason when they came as close as you can without actually winning, the inconsistency and the volatility requires you to have some sort of a backup until he figures it out and gets together, gets together.

And that's obviously not Calvin Pickle. but you also don't want to bring in a goalie who I think is going to make matters worse for him by like legitimately threatening him as well. So you need to kind of walk this fine line about it being an actual good goalie who can step in and play three or four playoff games for you if you need it. But also not just completely like destroy whatever confidence Stewart Skinner has as well. So it's it's it's a fascinating dynamic. Yeah, although I mean, I think you can like these playoff runs are so long. I think you need to be able to have two guys. You need to have two guys that you can reasonably trust.

And I just don't think Cal Pickard is the guy. It would be responsible in my view for the Oilers to go into this playoff run without bolstering their options in that. And if that guy threatens Stuart Skinner, so be it. I just think you can't worry about it in my view. And there's matchups where Stuart Skinner will be a better fit. You know,

like his vulnerabilities require you to execute a fair bit of, right? Like the Stuart Skinner lateral movement thing, right? It's like, okay,

well, if you can execute that, you know, guess what? Those are great scoring chances against everybody. They're especially dangerous against him,

but, you know, nonetheless, those aren't easy plays to execute, especially in the environment that is playoff hockey. But getting a guy

who maybe excels there so that there's, at least a change up if a team's finding answers. The other thing, you know, you're playing Kulak with Klingberg. And I think that neuters the old Kulak effect where it's like whoever Kulak is playing with is their breakout player. Like, oh, well, his game's been really good since he started playing with Kulak. It's like, yeah, that's how it kind of works.

That might not say that much about Vinnie DeHarnay or, you know, darn illness or whomever, whomever it is. John Klingberg these days, apparently. And then there's the, I mean, do you think there's an emotional, like the game against Philadelphia where, you know, it was 5'3,

they have the goalie out, they have possession, and I'm watching it three and a half minutes to go. And I'm thinking, man, they're probably going to tie this. You know, like they're probably going to tie this. This is the Oilers. and instead it was McDavid. He missed on a pass. Like he missed on a pass to the blue line.

Flyers down ice pressure stays on it. They end up adding the empty netter before the oilers ever get set up again. I do wonder like, you know, on the other side of this, does it take some of the guys who are most involved and had the highest sort of emotional highs, competitive highs, competitive demands on them through the course of this two weeks? Is there a hangover, maybe that comes from it too, that sort of the other side of the,

like, effect of the Four Nations tournament that we didn't discuss, that maybe lasts for a little bit when you get back and you're playing back to back against Philadelphia and Washington this weekend. Do you think there's anything to that? Because I did think we saw very much like a version of McDavid that looked more like his regulation performance in the Four Nations final, as opposed to what we saw from him in overtime,

in both games, frankly, this weekend. that's fair. I mentioned that status for them against the lead teams. Their next three games are all on the road at Tampa Bay, Florida, and then Carolina. So I think that'll be interesting. I mean, even throughout this all Leandro Seidel is just playing at such an

unbelievable level, like so clearly the best player in the league this season. So both the Alberta teams are doing the old Southeast, the old Southeast division gauntlet over the course of the next week. That's going to be fun to track, right? Because in Edmonton's case, it's can you

lock down home ice advantage can you avoid doing the f-round and find out thing that you did last season which i do think matters i think i think we saw that it mattered uh in game seven last last summer and then you know i think calgary their their next five games or six games right it's like dallas plus carolina plus both florida teams i mean it's just a brutal run for this flames team and that's make or break like their performance on this road trip will determine whether or not they're a serious contender for that second wildcard spot, even if they did sort of jump ahead of the Canucks with a three, two defeat over, or three, three two victory over San Jose at home on Sunday. Like they're ahead of the Canucks by point percentage anyway in that Western conference race now. But you look at their next six games. It's like that, that's it. They're going to need to win four of six against five of the best teams in hockey, I think.

if we're going to get into the game 65 through 70 range and be saying, hey, you know what, Calgary's got a real shot here. I think the bigger elephant in the room for the Oilers for me and something that people, for whatever reason, haven't really been discussing because I think everyone's so preoccupied with the backup goalie and the blue line and historically has been so, is if you look at their forward group, they're 23rd in the league this season in 5-1-5 shooting percent. And they generate a ton of like chances in tight.

And honestly, in a playoff series, McDavid and Dreyler are so good that if they're playing at their best, they can probably paper over that. Yeah. And they play so much. But they're so inefficient. And especially like,

you know, last postseason they had that remarkable run from Connor Brown and Adam Henrique and Derek Ryan and like got all this penalty killing using from them and goal. Yeah, yeah. And Mark. But then you look at those players and then even Arvinson and Skinner,

who they added this this summer and then like relying on captain and Port Colson. and all those guys can be functional in the right space. But I do think you bump into a potential concerning scenario where it's like I wouldn't expect a lot of those guys to convert on a lot of their opportunities. And then so you're getting to the spot where it's like, yeah, I mean, they might not be the 23rd true talent team in terms of finishing, but also they might be below average.

And that's a bizarre thing I think to say about a team that has two of the best three or four offensive players in the world. Well, and it's why Holloway mattered so much for them, right? that they had a sort of standalone driver that wasn't tethered to what McDavid was doing last, right? Because everyone else, you know, their top scores were all PowerPlay 1 guys or guys who played regularly with Connor. And then you had Holloway. And it was like, okay, at least you have another sort of downline up engine that they can help

you get some instant offense or some supporting offense. And yeah, I mean, I think it's fair to say that they're, you know, the fixes or the, or the changes that they made to their lineup, I don't think of adequately replaced that upside in terms of what they're playing in their middle six. And I did notice too, like Ryan Nugent Hopkins bumped down to the bottom six for that Washington game. Now it didn't work. So who knows if they'll stick with it. But, you know, like that, that could be a partial answer here, right? Is, you know, his results haven't been great two-way playing up lineup. but, you know, if you're able to build a third line around Ryan Nugent Hopkins,

can he provide a partial answer to that question? Early returns weren't great, but I wouldn't read too much into it based off of one, you know, game in which everything looked off, your puck management looked off, your best players looked off against an elite team. Like I think that's an experiment worth trying, at least for a few games. Get a look at it before the deadline because, you know, I mean, it does feel now, and I don't want to overreact two losses. I still think the Oilers are the highest ceiling team in the league

are fundamentally the best team in the league. But it does feel like, you know, another second pair defenseman, a depth goaltender, and ideally another forward with some juice are like all things I'd love to see them add ahead of the deadline. And that's a lot of business. That's a lot of stuff,

especially when you're up against the cap. It's a lot of stuff. Future assets. Yeah. All right. All right, we've got to get out of here. everyone for all your work at the athletic covering the Canucks while you're on the road and also listen to Canucks talk on the Sportsnet radio network. We are going to be back next Sunday,

the two of us. We're going to have our first guest of the season for the Sunday special. Our pal J. Fras, Jack Fraser, is going to join us. We're going to do a two-hour trades we'd like to see where we just get incredibly degenerate and cook up as many outrageous trades as we can, the best show of the year. I can't wait for it. It's going to be like Christmas. So that's my only plug for today. Thank you for listening. to us. We'll be back in a couple days with another episode here on the feed. In the meantime, thank you for listening again

to the Hockey-Pedio cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio network.