The Hockey PDOcast - Takeaways From Thursday Night’s Busy Night of Games

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Harman Dayal to work through Thursday night's busy slate of games, and discuss some of their biggest takeaways from a fun night of hockey. 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's Dimitri Filipovich and joining me as my good buddy Harmon Dile. Haram, what's going on then? I'm jacked up for the start of the season. It's been, I can't even say a fun first week because it hasn't been to first, like a full week yet, but at least a fun few first days. Yeah, you got three days worth of games, of course, in classic and HL fashion, they form out of the schedule so that there were 14 games on Thursday, and it was just an absolute frenzy

trying to keep up with it all. As we're recording on Friday, 0 tonight, up to 60, and everyone's in action on Saturday, and then just the one on Sunday. I thought the plan for today, you know, this is the last show we're going to do this week for opening week, so I thought we'd kind of bounce around, got some notes as I was trying to keep up with everything on Thursday, some of the stuff we saw. from those games, maybe a few things that either stood out, surprised us,

vindicated our preconceived notions, or just stuff to kind of watch moving forward. And then on the back half, if we have time, I want to get into some of the recent articles you've written up on the athletic and maybe some of the, I guess, ramifications of the recent big name extensions we've seen and their impact on the market and some of the business side of things there. Let's start with Thursday night's action, though. And I've got about five or six games. I wanted to run through with you here.

The first one was Senator's Lightning. And it was a really fun one. The Lightning jumped out to a 2-0 lead, then they're up 3-1. At first in their mission, the Sends come roaring back, wind up winning 5-4.

And it wasn't necessarily surprising in the sense that the Lightning cooked offensively the way you'd expect, right? All four of their goals came from essentially that top-line combination and power play. I think three of them were either with the man advantage or with the extra attacker out late,

and it was that classic sort of, you know, movement pucks flying around, a few set plays with Bork Strand cutting backdoor, a couple of high tips, Kucharov obviously doing his thing from his office. So that was the good part for me, the bad part for me, and maybe this dovetails a little bit as a tease for later on in today's show when we're going to talk about the defense tiers

that you wrote up on the athletic in the preseason. I had a lot of questions and one of the limiting factors for me being just completely all in on the lightning as a legit contender and the team that's going to benefit most from Florida's injuries and this being their shot to really get back to the mountain top is the state of that blue line. And when you and I had our call in the preseason, we went about an hour on the phone. You were asking me for, you know, you gave me your list of deters and you were asking me what I thought and I was giving you some of my suggestions or some of my takes. And we really should have just recorded it and ran it as a podcast, honestly,

because it was a pretty good back and forth. But I was a bit dubious on where you had the lightning. I thought it was a bit too generous based on reputation or name brand value, especially with some of the guys at top the depth chart. But that foot speed that they have pretty much all throughout all three pairs is a big concern. And I thought you saw it in this one where the senators are certainly a very quick team throughout their lineup. And I think that's a realistic path for them to move forward this season as a strong transition team. but as that game went going,

that second period in particular, it was just a layup line for Ottawa in transition where they were just getting straight to the net and attacking with speed, ultimately wound up doing the lightning in where Pinto gets in behind Radish, scores the goal to make it 3-3, I believe. Then in the third period,

Radish turns it over on a breakout pass. Sanderson cuts it off, takes it to the net, and then they wind up scoring the goal that put them up. And that's something I'm going to be watching moving forward because the forward group and the power play is certainly immaculate for Tampa Bay. Vasilevsky's going to be better than he was in this one. He was phenomenal down the stretch last year.

But just in terms of that conversation of them being in that inner circle of contenders and the team that could come out of the Atlantic, I still have some reservations when you watch a game like that, just how plotting some of their defensemen are and how you can really, once the game opens up a little bit, get behind them and cook them. And that's exactly what we saw Ottawa do in their opener. Yeah. And with the lack of footspers,

we already knew that they might have some troubles moving the puck at times, just even based off how easily the Panthers forecheck was able to dominate Tampa's defenseman and make it difficult for Tampa to get going on the transition side of things. I didn't anticipate them looking this ugly defending the rush. I obviously didn't expect it to be a strength of their team, but when you talk about it being a layup line, it was really egregious at times. And not just the plays where a guy like, okay, Tim Stutzler going wide on Lillieberg,

he's going to burn Lillieberg and most third pair defensemen for that matter. But it was the plays where some of their defensemen were diving into the neutral zone because you could tell that they didn't trust their backwards skating to be able to keep up and felt that they had to gamble. And they were gambling in spots where their gap wasn't tight enough. And it would lead to a clean two-on-one change. chance for Ottawa. There was one where McDonough was diving in and, I mean,

if you're getting caught against Brady Kachuk who isn't exactly a burner in a straight line, that's not great. And then Lilliberg had another one where he was also diving in to the neutral zone because he was sort of flat-footed and didn't trust his ability to maintain

speed going backwards. That led to another clean two-on-one rush. The one that really drove me nuts though was the Pinto's second goal that began with Sanderson's net drive. The Radish turnover, even from that point, they still had two defensemen back. And I know Jake Sanderson was unbelievable in that game. He's going to make a lot of defenders look silly in this league.

But when you have two defenders back, there's just no way Sanderson should have been able to drive inside against Radish that easily. there was just it was so laxadaisical you've got to be able to contest a play like that and you're right this lightning team is so interesting because when you look at their forward

group as it currently stands especially when they get a Nick Paul back and we know that they brought Janie Gord back plus we didn't even get an opportunity to see Bjork Strand in the playoffs the point being we know their top six has always been deadly

offensively, but now I think they also have some of the depth, especially if a guy like Connor Geeky can take a step that top to bottom that four group is elite and maybe considering the Panthers injuries the best in the NHL. But their back end is quite clearly a bottom third group in the NHL. And it's only one game, but this foot speed concern isn't going away anytime soon. Well, she's since the senators certainly have some burners and are generally a pretty fast team. But last year, they were about middle of the pack and rush chances. So it's not exactly like they were an elite team in that regard. And you could have fooled me watching that game because they certainly look like that. And maybe they're just ready to take a step in the Atlantic

themselves. But they really doubled like they doubled up. Tampa Bay in this game at five on five, shots were 2719 for the Sends. Chances, seven three, goals three one. And you mentioned Jake Anderson there. I know he's a player who caught our eye a lot last season as he really vaulted himself into a conversation of the elite defenders. In the league, I think it's important to remember when you look at his season long numbers from last season, though, how much of that time, especially early on, was spent playing with Travis Hammack, maybe a player we're going to talk about more in a second year when we get to the Red Wings Habs game. But he spent about 600 minutes or so 5-1-5 away from Artem Zube because Zubb missed 25 to 26 games or whatever last year. And we saw those guys reunited and they were awesome. I thought Sanderson was phenomenal.

He plays 15 minutes, 5-15, 80% expected goal share. he has two assists, leads the team in ice time, and most of that usage came head-to-head in the match-up assignment against Kuturov, Pointing Gensel, and he was just everywhere. And I feel like for the Sends team to take another step this year and build off of last year where they made it back to the playoffs, it's going to start with him just leveling up even more and really just genuinely being one of the best defensemen in the league. And I certainly think based on the skill set and what he puts on tape like this. And then now the situation with Zubak full time, bodes really well for them there.

So I thought that was really exciting and the speed differential between the two teams, especially moving backwards, really stuck out to me. I guess it's just something to kind of monitor moving forward. You got anything else on that game or do you want to move on and try to zoom through as many of these as we can?

Let's move on. A couple quick notes on Habs Red Wings, as I referenced earlier, the Habs start out the season in Toronto. Second of a back-to-back. They go into Detroit. They win 5-1, obviously, for Detroit. It was disappointing.

because we spent a lot of time in the preseason talking about how they needed to be better at 5-15 offensively and some of the stuff they were going to try to do under Todd McClellan with a full season now with him behind the bench. And their only goal here came early on on the power play. They did generate much more offensive 5-15 and Jakub Dolbis was just really good in net for Montreal. But when you play that way, one of my concerns was, especially with the state of this blue line beyond the top couple guys, that same foot speed conundrum. And potentially stretching you out a little bit in terms of your structure with guys being out of the play in different spots.

And we saw the HABs really burn them in transition in the first period with a couple goals where, especially that Albert Johansson, Travis Hammondick pair was just kind of floating into the wrong spots. And they were able to either cut through them or get behind them. It required a couple nifty plays. In the neutral zone, one was this sort of area pass one touch by Brendan Gallag, which was beautiful to Zach Boldug. the other one was Demidov, kind of lull in to sleep of his back foot, flinging a pass up the ice and it results in Oliver Caponin's two-on-one goal. But that is certainly a concern for me. And obviously, John Gibson making his debut, I think it was highly anticipated. He gets pulled after five goals against him, just 13 shots in the second period here. So it was concerning

as a carryover from last year for Detroit. It is just the one game. And I think this Habs team is going to have performances like this because, I think everyone's excited about the No Adops in addition and Demidov's first full season, but there is a lot of firepower there. And in particular, Bolduk, who we were very high on, carries over what he did at the end of last year and gives them now a legitimate scoring threat beyond just Suzuki and Caulfield. And so I think that's really exciting for the Habs chances moving forward. Yeah, definitely.

Before I dive deeper on Balduk, I just want to say it was so interesting that first period. The Canadians, I think, only had nine shots, but I think they might have. had six to seven odd man grade A rush chances. And it's funny because the way the game started, Gibson obviously ended up being pulled, but his night started with two or three unbelievable stops on grade A chances. And that's just to tell you the environment that he was in right from the get-go. You mentioned the sequences that led to a couple of the rush goals in the first period, but also the Suzuki line was creating chances at will.

they were doing a terrific job of just stretching the ice, playing with pace, and look deadly off the rush. So even beyond just whatever the numbers would indicate that anyone watching that game would have been shocked at how porous the Red Wings were defensively. And then on Balduke, I love this guy. When training camps were about to open,

I wrote a story on 10 sort of under the radar acquisitions that I thought deserved a little bit more hype and Balduk was number one on the list. I think he was overshadowed a little bit because of all the excitement around Dobson and Demadov. But you look at his profile, he's big, he's fast, he's aggressive and physical. You also wouldn't necessarily think about him as this top defensive player because he doesn't kill penalties.

But he drives good defensive results because of how he hounds guys on the forecheck. And even in the season opener against the Leafs, you saw multiple instances of him using his stick and pressure to disrupt plays all over the ice. 19 goals and 72 games last year despite playing less than 13 minutes per game and a lack of high in linemates to play with. Oscar Sunfist was his most common linemate last year

at 5-on-5 according to natural statric. And you combine all the physical traits with the size and the speed and the physicality with he's got a quick, sneaky release. It's not an overpowering shot, velocity-wise. But when I went back in the summer and looked at how he manufactured his offense and scored his goals, he's able to get the puck off his stick so quickly

and almost fool goaltenders before they fully get set. And it's a big reason why about a third of his goals last year in St. Louis were from the bumper area on the power play. And even at 5 on 5, it was interesting to see situations where one of his linemates would have the puck along the sideboards. ball duke would find a way into the quiet ice in the middle and they would make that little slot pass and it was so quick the shot off ball duke's stick that the goaltender just didn't have a chance to get sent and i think when you talk to nchl players and goaltenders about

what what are some of the underrated traits that make a shooter hard to stop it's it's it's how quickly they can they can just fire it um especially off of an east-west kind of pass. And I think we saw Balduk's quick release again on that rush goal that he had. And the haves were so star for offense beyond the top line last year, right? Part of that success they had in that magical run, they got them back into the playoffs after the Four Nations, it was just entirely hinging on the Suzuki line

and then Hudson-Pair being out there with them. And so now you add some supplementary players that can not only keep you afloat when they're off the ice, but I actually contribute offensively. I think that's a massive differentiator here for them. And, you know, Boulder Goldsaw has, to your point, like a certain level, I think, of kind of either swag or dog to his game that I really love. You could see sometimes it's a bit overzealous. Like last year in the playoffs against the Jets, he got into trouble a little bit with some

kind of careless penalties where he went over the line a little bit. But I still think it's a massive net positive for him. And he ends that rookie season last year, 13 goals and 24. four games down the stretch. And he started out this one with goals in each of the two games, 10 shot attempts under 30 minutes play total. So I think very exciting. I think for the Red Wings,

it's interesting how, you know, heading into the season, some of these really troublesome veteran pickups that we would have identified have already just kind of rear their ugly head, right? Like Hamannick here for the Red Wings. We're going to talk more about Stanley and Shen for the Jets.

Obviously, CC and Dumlin for the Kings. But, I mean, in under six minutes, a five-on-five time here for that Hamannic pair with Albert Johans and three goals against. I mean, just incredibly ugly in something. I think the Red Wings are certainly going to have to figure out. Let's quickly do Rangers Sabres. A nice 4-0-0 bounce-back win for the Rangers after just a complete stinker in their home opener. 37 save shout-out for Sesterkin. There was the Trochec injury, which wound up bumping Zabinajad back to center.

after he had started the year with the plan being for him to play on the wing, I thought it was promising that J.T. Miller looked much more functional. He was really struggling moving around in the opener. There was that viral clip of his effort in the own zone. And, you know, he's probably not 100% because he did get that injury in preseason in practice. But he bounces back a little bit here, multi-point effort. On the Sabres front, I mean, I was excited about them heading in. I noted how that might have been my fault because we've done this same song and dance for however many years now.

They had a bunch of key absences. And for a team that's going to have depth question marks, it's going to be really tough to work around that. So I'm not necessarily going to say here we go again in terms of just evaluating them based on this performance. But it was pretty ugly. And just Strick had made some big saves. And they got some volume on him. So it wasn't a completely listless performance. but it was bad enough that they once again got booed off home ice at the end of it.

And so it's certainly not the way you want to start in terms of all that baggage that they enter the season with with the playoff drought and the feeling that things are going to snowball. And they got to figure this out quick before they go on one of those vintage sabres losing streaks where they just build such a big hole for themselves that they really can't dig out of it. But as the season goes along. It's crazy how many key players are already missing. Yep. Right. Then in the Winnipeg Jets, you know, no Zach Benson, no one power, no Michael Kesslerang, no Luka Pekulukinen, Josh Norris goes down. And I think that's the most devastating part of that game against the Rangers is there was so much excitement around Norris based on the strong camp and preseason that he had. He's clearly their number one centerman now that Tage Thompson is a full-time winger under Lindy Roth. And behind Norris, it's not like they're. they have like Kulik and MacLeod are good players, but they're not going to be able to replace a Josh Norris if he's out long term.

We know from a personal standpoint how rough Norris has had it going back to Ottawa and the shoulder troubles. Just the way that he went down and him not returning to the game and how important he is to that team and how much of a difference maker he could have been is just it's killer from a vibe's perspective more so than just the performance and you just hope that

he's back sooner rather than later because the injury is what concerns me more than the performance itself against the Rangers yeah especially with no power in Kesslerang and how excited I was to see that as a potential long-term fit and pair

you wind up getting to this spot where you once again have to play Jacob Bryson and he plays with Ryan Johnson and they just got absolutely destroyed. I think they had an 8% expected goal share. Bryson loses that battle in front of the net to Lafranier to start the scoring for the Rangers and there's just so little margin for error but then losing all these guys and then you can throw in Benson and how he's sort of the defensive conscience for this team up front. It's going to be tough. It's such a shame because you could also see the reason for excitement in terms of Tage Thompson gets off 11 shot attempts here. Ross Mastalin plays over 25 minutes and he was phenomenal.

He was dancing. He was taking the puck outside in and getting good looks off. And so that nucleus, I guess, or core is there. It's just that you've got to figure out everything else around them. And with all these injuries, it's tough to do that right now. So hopefully they can figure that out. You got any notes on the Rangers on the other side of things? Because the Buffalo side kind of stuck out to me in watching that one for obvious reasons. but they won this game and, you know, at least quelled some of the concern

that was building after that first performance at home against the Penguins. Yeah, I think this was an important game just to calm the team, calm the market, because that season opener against the Pittsburgh Penguins was so listless. They looked so slow in transition. Their offense was an issue. And even looking at the roster, the bottom for defense, in the bottom six forward group, that team just looks so top-heavy

and the power play didn't look very good against the penguins either. So for them to kind of bounce back decisively, and yeah, they give up 37 shots, but only five of them were recorded as high danger chances. It was, look, it's the Sabres, a severely undermanned Sabres team.

So I'm not going to, I'm not going to say that that kind of performance is enough to, to make me believe and think, oh, this is back on track and everything is going to be rosy from this point onward, but they needed this kind of performance, so at least steady the ship. And like you said, it's really encouraging to see Miller make it impact offensively because I thought the other night against Pittsburgh going head to head against Evgeny Malkin, who, it's funny, Evgeny Malkin every October just becomes one of the best players in the league,

and then he runs out of gas in November. But Malkin really took Miller's lunch money in that season opener. So for him to make an impact at a couple points, I think that's really important because he's going to have to be one of their top offensive drivers. They're not going to get a lot of offense out of that bottom six. The bottom four defense isn't really going to contribute much offense. It's going to be on the top guys to make an impact.

And for Miller to still come through when he's dealing with a knock, that's massive for the Rangers. Let's end with Jets stars before we go to break. And with all due respect to a couple other heavyweight tilts that I was excited about, namely Cain's Devils and Utah, Colorado. I was really anticipating this one just because I wanted to see how the stars would look obviously after the coaching change. And then the Jets with all their notable absences and just looking entirely different

in terms of roster composition than the team that won the president's trophy last year. And if you just look at the final box score here, you see, all right, well, the stars won 5-4. The Jets had that power to play late with the potential to tie it and pulling the goalie. And that was exciting. I feel like that final score line is very deceiving because at the point that Wyatt Johnson made it 5-1 with about 16 and a half minutes left in the game, shots on goal were 35 to 14. For Dallas, they finished this game with a near 70% score adjusted, expect a goal share at 5-1-5.

And we had a lot of questions about the Jets. I spoke about them a bunch with you when we did that. A aforementioned defense tiers conversation and breakdown. And we can get into all the numbers here, but it was pretty ugly. I mean, this is a Jets team that was so good defensively last year in the regular season. And to start off the year against a high power offensive attack the Dallas has, certainly with all the weapons, they bolster. But man, 37 shots against 4.4 expected goals against vian natural statrick. those marks were hit just four times by this Jets T

Jets D all of last year. And so starting it out with that is very precarious. And I think there's some massive question marks here. I wouldn't expect necessarily every game the rest of this month to look like this because they're going to get some softer matchups and Halebuck's just going to stand on his head at certain points. But if this is reflective of what it's going to look like until Sandberg and Lowry in particular come back,

that's a massive blinking, warning sign for me in terms of the Jets outlook, especially when you think about how good Colorado looks in that division. Dallas, of course, our expectations for Utah. The statement Minnesota made starting the year in St. Louis, you don't want to dig a hole that deep, especially for a team that benefits so much from home ice the way the Jets do. Yeah, there are very few defensemen in this league who can drive a top four pair. I think there are probably around one or two that you might have on a team where They legitimately can single-handedly make a difference, move the needle.

And the rest of the defensemen on most teams, even the ones that sort of play on top four pairs, are more just passengers where they can look fine with the right partner. They can look even good with the right partner. But if they don't have a driver with them, they're going to struggle and get caved in. And the jets have two of them drivers. One's Morrissey, one's Sandberg. and Sandberg stepping up from two years ago when he was crushing it in a sheltered third pair role to wow, he becomes a high-end number two defenseman right away. One of the most impressive breakouts in the NHL last year.

We talked endless times on the show last season about how he's the underrated engine of this Jets team because of how elite he is defensively, but also how quick and efficient he is connecting plays up the. ice, how smart he is in all three zones with and without the puck, how much better he makes a guy like Neil Pionk look. And you saw it, right? Hayden Flurry, I like him in a third pair role. Anytime he has to step up and play top four minutes on that second pair, he gets exposed defensively. And it was a really rough outing for him against the stars. He's got the physical tools. But when he's playing non-sheltered minutes and more dangerous forwards, he just doesn't have the defensive reads to be able to make stops.

And the Stanley Schen pair is just flat out too slow. I don't understand the infatuation with Logan Stanley beyond his size. And especially if you're going to, like, Stanley and Shen are kind of redundant in that way, where both guys are well-bow, average, two of the slowest defensemen in the league. Now, Shan, I think, actually has the smarts to, with the right partner, be able to hold his own and be an effective third

guy, but I don't know how much longer you can continue to trot Stanley out there as an everyday defenseman as part of this top six, because boy, those second and third pairs really struggled. Yeah, the shot blocks and the stick checks and everything for Sandberg are going to capture a lot of attention, but I think the stuff he does with the puck that you noted is just as important for this Jets team's outlook, because even heading in to the offseason, they were never going to be able to match Colorado or Dallas or honestly even like Minnesota and St. Louis, certainly Utah in that own division in terms of pure foot speed, right? Like they would get there offensively through that continuity and connectivity and sort of an economy of movement,

like making smart decisions, making efficient passes up the ice with these elaborate sequences to get into the offensive zone and then attack from there. And so you remove that and all of a sudden it's just this massive missing link that really exposes a lot of flaws. And here's some of the numbers for those three Jets, blue liners that were kind of thrust into this bigger role as a result of it. Luke Shed in 728-5-15. The Star scored two goals in that time. The Jets came out of it with a 2% expected goal share. Hayden Flurry 1437 at 515. The Star scored four goals.

In that time, Logan Stanley 940 at 515, shots were 10 to 2. for Dallas. And so, yeah, I'm not sure what the workaround there is beyond obviously splitting up that third pair and infusing more foot speed and puck movement and just kind of holding on for dear life until Sandberg's able to come back. And at this point, if you're not aware of how important a player he is, I think performances like this are certainly going to be notable. For the stars, Miko-Ranton was obviously a beast. There was that one goal he set up where it was just like your prototypical power forward move where he enters the zone. He just holds off Cole Kepke, I believe, with this bully ball play where he just kind of

almost bounces off of them. And then he sends a high danger pass into the slot that they're able to bury. I thought it was nice to see Jason Robertson and Y. Johnson scorer because they had such slow starts to the year last season. And then our guy, Neil Lundquist, plays nearly 17 minutes, scores the goal as two points, was playing 5-1-5 with Thomas Harley, a pair that we only saw for 70 minutes or so all of last season and peterborough has just got to be somewhere right now just punching air just in disbelief that niels lankwis was playing valuable top four minutes and producing

this way so there's a lot of good stuff there for the start something we saw in the postseason from them as well obviously with the different coach but they carried it over here was just how much mixing and matching they do with their forwards and part of that is just being blessed with such versatile weapons and different looks you can throw at the other team but i believe their fourth line in this one was their only three-man forward group that played more than four minutes together. Like they were just interchanging everyone and just trying to on the road find easier opportunities for their top guys to create. They were able to do so.

And so I love that because sometimes we see a little bit of stagnation or predictability from coaches where it's like everyone is just playing with the same players at all times. You kind of know what to expect. You can load up against them defensively. And it's just so much tougher to do against this star's team because you almost never know which three forwards are going to be out there at a given time. And so whether it's loading up Robertson with Hinson and Ranting in or mixing and matching with different combos, they're able to do it all. And I think that just makes them such a dangerous opponent moving forward.

Yeah, and it's a luxury that's afforded in large part because they have so many forwards that can flex both wing and center. I don't think other teams have that same level of optionality, even if they did one experiment, just because they don't have enough guys that can sort of shift. as seamlessly between playing wing and playing center, whereas the stars have a lot of that. And it makes them more resilient as well if they run into injuries in the middle of the season, which inevitably all teams do. Because you have guys that can adapt.

And as you alluded to, you have versatile skill sets that it's not as if the players they have can only mesh with certain stylistic archetypes. They have players that are, smart two way that can adapt and it makes it easier for guys to build chemistry. Chemistry is a funny word because sometimes, and I had this conversation with Conner Garland the other day, when it comes to new lines clicking right away, sometimes it's just as simple as are you a good stylistic match or not. There isn't so much a building chemistry component

to it and you've got to spend a lot of time necessary. before it works. Sometimes you just have players that are good and because they're smart, they're able to adapt. And that's what the Stars team is kind of like. There are a lot of interchangeable parts and it's going to give Glenn Gulletson a ton of interesting options.

Yeah. On the chemistry note, I guess the one silver lining for the Jets here is Kyle Connor coming off as massive eight-year extension has the Hatcher 10-shot attempts and Mark Shifley was just hitting him in space and shooting areas all night. And those guys have obviously spent so many years. together and you could see that that chemistry on a pole display but i think this jet's team

while there's still this banged up and have this many key absences are going to require them to to score much more than maybe they did in the in the past and try to find ways to to win some of these high scoring shootout games as opposed to the usual two one three two that we've become accustomed to from them all right uh harm let's take our break here and then when we come back we will jump back in we're going to close out today's show with a couple other games that we watched from Thursday night. You're listening to the Hockey Ocast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right. We're back here on the Hockeypedio cast joined by Harmon Dyle. We're talking about Thursday night's games. There were 14 on the schedule. We tried to watch as much

of each one as we could. We're going through some of the more notable ones that we saw. Let's talk about Canucks Flames, a game obviously you hear Vancouver were in attendance for and got to watch live. I'm curious for your take on what you saw. It wasn't the Flame season debut because they were the second of a back-to-back. They had had this dramatic-spirited come back, come from behind win in a shootout against their division and provincial rivals. Edmonton Oilers,

the Canucks, though, were starting their season at home. And obviously, it's a massive year for them, for any number of reasons, just how disappointing and dramatic last year was here in Vancouver. The questions about not only Les Perterson's health and ability to bounce back in a form, but Philip He don't. hopefully being healthy in him having the performance he had here. Quinn Hughes and his future

in terms of, I think, part of seeing a lot of these extensions was just reinforcing how important to star players maximizing their earning power is right now in terms of not only the eight years you can get under the current CBA, but all the upfront money and signing bonus structures and all that and how that is essentially going to come to ahead, I think, this summer between that window of July 1st when Quinn Hughes is eligible for extension and September 16th, when some of those perks are no longer to be allowed under the UCBA. But what do you think from this game and watching it live in terms of maybe takeaways for both teams and whether it was as encouraging an effort from the Canucks as you'd expect based on

the final scoreline? It was a really weird game to evaluate because you look at the final scoreline 5-1 and you would assume it was a blowout or Vancouver had control the entire game. And yet through the first two periods, I actually thought the flames were. process-wise is the sharper team. And I think that reflects on just how much of a difference that you're Demko can make when he's healthy and in form. He, he was unbelievable for them. It's not that the flames necessarily peppered him with a ton of shots through the first two periods, but he had to make a handful of grade A chances. For example, Coleman off a shorthanded

breakaway three minutes into into the game. Coleman, that was the first time that he got robbed right in front. He had a great stop on Sharon Govich as well. And it was a one-nothing game heading into the second intermission. And really the goaltending was the biggest reason why, because you had Demko looking so sharp, so calm in the crease. And then on the other end, Dustin Wolf was terrific against the Edmonton Oilers. The flames made the serious decision.

to roll him out again on the second leg of the back to back. And he definitely wasn't at his sharpest. The opening goal that Kiefer Sherwood scored in the first period, it was an unscreened rush shot from the tops of the circles that it wasn't like Bessers, um, you know, barred down. He's picking a corner snipe. It just went through Wolf. That's a goal that, well, that's a shot that Wolf stops 95 times out of 100.

And so even looking at the numbers through the first two periods, the flames were up 30 to 18 in terms of five and five shot attempts. They had about 66% of the expected goals. And I think you could tell that, all right, this is a Canucks team that is understandably shaking off some rust. I thought they looked a little bit discombobulated trying to make plays through the neutral zone. They didn't have too much trouble beating that first layer of forechecking pressure. but it was all right, the next play when you're trying to,

the defense was trying to make a play, pass into neutral zone. The flames were doing such a great job of stepping up. And they, because they'd played the previous night, they had their legs and had some jump to them. But by the time you got to the third period, the flames just ran out of gas.

And that's where the Canucks started to find their legs again. For them, it's encouraging that they scored five goals in a game where Quinn Hughes didn't pick up a point. And Philip Heidel was terrific. You saw him make a lot of East-West plays, a pair of goals, four shots. That was Vancouver's best line with Connor Garland and Archie Baines. But really, I think for me, Demko being a massive X factor,

and then Heidel helping take the game over in the third period were really the two biggest takeaways for me. Yeah, it wasn't only a back-to-back for Dustin Boeuf. It was a back-to-back where in the first leg, he is just undersea. facing 37 shots, about a third of them or more coming from McDavid-Drey Sidel and Bouchard and a ton of high danger looks, eight shot, a shootout attempt, after that as well. And he stole that game for them. And then they just went right back to him here. And he was uncharacteristically sloppy, I thought, you know, the one, the, the, the, the, the one Heidel goal was obviously a freak occurrence where, you know, goes off of Kevin Ball and just bounces right back to

Heedel and Wolf's out of position and he's able to bury it. But certainly that rush shop I sure what you mentioned is one that we've just become accustomed to him just effortlessly snagging and I wonder how much of that was just not being quite as sharp. The Hedal X factor is huge here for me because we saw just 15 games for him in a Canucks uniform after the trade last year. His last game was March 15th, I believe. And there's certainly a ton of cautious excitement because you could see in this game just the infusion of juice offensively that he should theoretically give a team that desperately needs it beyond their top players.

The creativity, the shot making, some of that East West playmaking you were mentioning. That was on a full display here. He's so good when he's got a scoring opportunity and alone against the goal and he was able to beat Dustin Wolf here on that breakaway. And you're right, it is very encouraging that typically last year, if Quinn Hughes had an offensive performance like this,

the Canucks would just not have a chance to win. He finishes with just the two shot attempts. There were very few instances I saw where he had space to work with at all, right? Like, I think there was that one sequence. I forget if it was in the second or the third where the conducts drew a penalty. And then during the delay, while they were playing with the puck, he was able to shake loose a little bit. But for the most part, the flames were all over him.

And I know you wrote this up in the athletics. So maybe I'll let you talk about that a little bit here. Some of the stuff the flames were trying to do to corral him a little bit. And the success they obviously had doing so, not on the box score or on the stat sheet, because the Canucks won this game, but just individually, it certainly wasn't as prolific an effort from Hughes as we saw pretty much every single game all of last year.

It was really interesting tactically because it wasn't just, all right, we're going to send our winger aggressively to pressure the top, which we've seen other teams experiment with from time to time against Quinn Hughes. It was, we're going to send one winger bull rushing Quinn,

and then the weak signed winger, who's typically responsible for Philippine, He's going to drift into the middle and almost be covering the center point area so that even if Quinn, let's say, does a spinorama or tries to walk the line east-west to evade the first winger that's bullrushing him, then you've almost got basketball-style help defense available for you. And you can create a situation where you're almost double-teaming him, essentially. And on multiple instances, you notice that Philip Peronick was basically unguarded on the right side of the point. and there were at least two or three instances where Quinn, because of all the pressure and attention on him, had to flip the puck to Heronik, who then had all sorts of time and space to attack downhill. Heronic's going to have to make opponents pay if that's how opposing teams are going to try defending Quinn,

where essentially they're not worried about Philipronic in the offensive zone. At least the Calgary Flames weren't. And honestly, it was really effective because Quinn didn't have nearly as much time at space as he usually does at the top of the offensive zone to maneuver. And it was almost a situation where I think one of his best moments was Adam Klopka tried to come rushing at him. Hughes does the spinnerama. But then I believe it was Ryan Lomburg, who was covering the other point. He had drifted into the middle. and even after Quinn had beat Klappka,

there was no opportunity for Quinn to drive into the slot and turn, all right, I've beat one guy, I'm going to just carry it into the slot for a scoring chance. It was, all right, I've spun and beat one guy. Now I've got to pass it to Hironik because there's no space for me to take it to the middle. So that was a really interesting tactical approach by Calgary and I'm curious to see how Hughes and Ronick will adapt moving forward.

All right, let's put a bow on today's show with Sharks Golden Knights. We can't, in good conscience, ended without discussing the conclusion of that game for those that missed it, if it was either past your bedtime or you were just watching something else because it was such a busy schedule around the NHL. It was an absolutely bonkers finish

that you couldn't really make up if you tried. The sharks are protecting a 3-2 lead late in the third. I believe there's like two minutes left or so. When Burr gets the puck first and his clearing attempt hits the JumboTron and play stopped and they have to regroup for a defensive zone draw

and everyone is just shocked and amused at that. And then you're like, all right, well, that won't bite them because they get it out. I believe it's to Foley that springs Eklund, and he gets a diving attempt that goes just wide. He regroups and retrieves the puck. He comes around the net. It looks like he's going to bury an empty netter.

Shea Theodore is there to knock it away. There's about a minute and a half left. The Golden Knights go back the other way. Ikel's just trying to dump the puck in, honestly, to try to establish some sort of possession and, you know, regroup with the extra attacker out there. And it bounces past Alex Nadelcovic and into the net to tie it. And then in OT, Ned won ups himself by skating out to the blue line

to try to get a loose puck before the Golden Knights can get it. And he turns it over. Riley Smith taps it in. There's this visual that I posted on Twitter of Ned just frantically at the blue line trying to skate backwards towards the net and looking completely out of position. And it was really bad timing because I had just done a show yesterday with our guy, Kevin Woodley, and he was actually talking about Ascarov and Ned and Net for the Sharks

and their puck handling ability and how that could make life easier for the Sharks' blue liners and all that stuff. And then that happens. So that was pretty tough. I mean, it was unbelievable theater. I couldn't really believe it. I loved everything about it. Obviously for the Sharks, it was very disappointing. but I thought their effort otherwise was much more encouraging

compared to how they looked last year where they just never really had the puck. They certainly, and the Golden Ice were playing a second of a back-to-back on the road, so that is an important piece of context. But it was an encouraging effort in terms of process, and then that happened, and that's obviously all you come away from that game thinking about.

So if you haven't checked that out, certainly either go on my Twitter page or YouTube and just watch the final couple minutes of that game because it's well worth your time. It was such a funny comedy of errors. And I guess the biggest takeaway is Alex Nadel, really wants Gavin McKenna. It's funny, the OT error.

I actually don't even think coming out was necessarily the wrong decision because the Golden Knights would have had, I think, a pretty clear-cut breakaway if they had gotten to the loose puck. The problem and the critical mistake he made was about two or three feet before he approached the puck. he took half a second longer to almost survey his options and see, all right, where should I try directing this Pock to make sure our team can keep possession. Whereas if you're a goaltender out at your team's blue line and you've got pressure right on

you, just clear the Pock, dump it, ice it. I don't care. You've eliminated a breakway, even if it's icing, mission accomplished. But to try and get cute with it, it was the hesitant. that created that extra half second for the Golden Knights to be able to close that playoff because if Ned had just continued at full speed and had just cleared it, he would have been first to the puck, I think, and it would have eliminated a potential breakaway.

On the Golden Knights front, I got a couple notes. First is Pavil Dorfayev. Two games, four goals, three on the power play, 16 shot attempts. He scored a shootout goal against the Kings as well. that down, low play, and the Golden Knights were second in the league last year in power play efficiency somehow looks even more dangerous than it was last season where with Eicholnet shooting position in stone at the goal line, you have to respect those options as threats. And if you do and you take them away, kind of to your note about what Quinn Hughes is commanding in terms of

defensive attention and then the impetus being on the guys who are out there on the ice with them to make the opposing defense pay, Peldorafayev is just essentially in the best. most luxurious spot in the league right now where he's hanging out on the right flank and is just going to be fed one-timers with the goalie out of position until teams adjust. And if they do, then the other guys are going to burn them. But he's just teeing off right now. And it's incredible to watch that power play. And then even if I-1-5, the combination of Eichael and Marner, it's just two games. This wasn't the best game for the Golden Knights before those final couple minutes. But very encouraging results at 5-1-5. I think they've generated two goals already, 80% expected goal share. And Ikel,

expected is shooting much more than he was last season. And, you know, one of the goals is that dump in that kind of bobbled past Ndekovitchian, but he's going to get more shooting opportunities now just playing with a pass for his player like Mariner. And he got that massive extension before the season as well. And I imagine he's going to, it's going to wind up aging pretty well right out of the gate because he's poised for just a monster offensive season if things shake out this way. This is just a deadly group top to bottom. It was already a deep offensive. attack last year with how many guys hit the 15 goal mark. I felt like the entire forward roster was able to get to around that range.

But then to add another superstar at the top of the lineup to really super charge that first line so that your top end is now closer to the level that Colorado and Edmonton have, that's a game changer because the Golden Knights still have that tremendous forward depth where they can roll out a third line of Hurtle, Dorofiev, and Brandon Sott, if they want to. You've got an option like Brett Houdin, who scored 21 goals, buried on your fourth line potentially. The center depth of having Eichael, Carlson, Hurtle, and Sizzins down the middle is pretty wild, considering they also had to give away Nick Waugh this summer. They just have so many options.

They're so deep and Eichel and Marner are going to be so fun to watch in transition, just cook things up. And Eichl's always been a deadly shooter. So I'm excited to see how much more he can score individually now that he's got an elite setup guy too. All right, harm. That's all the time we have for today. Unfortunately, we don't have time at the back half to specifically get into some of those defense tiers that we promised. And some of the contract extensions, we'll circle back on that certainly as the years go,

as though season goes along, maybe next week, I'll talk more about the extensions, and then we'll have you back on, and we can talk more about the tiers, rankings. I think we at least sprinkled it in a little bit when we talked about teams like the Jets. So if you're a Hurricanes fan, though, you should thank me that I convince Harmon

to move them up a little bit. He was already kind of wavering, but I was like, they got to be in a higher tier based on how few weaklings there are and a third pair of Neketian and Gostis Bhaer, who looked awesome in their debut against the devil, plug that, plug some other stuff that people can expect from here

the athletic moving forward here. Yeah, so James Merrill and I did a fun story where fun couple projects where we ranked every team's defense group into tiers and then did the same thing with every team's forward group. So that was a lot of fun

and got that covering the Canucks season opener as well and a lot of national stuff still to come over at the athletic. All right, buddy. well, we're back. We're certainly going to be sprinkling you in as much as possible whenever you're available. I'm going to try to get you on and break down some of these games we're watching because it's always fun when we get to chat. If you enjoy today's show, give us a five-star review

wherever you listen, pop into the PDAX Discord as well, especially in the evenings when these games are going on on some of these busy nights. The watching the games channel is really fun. We're also doing extra shows this season on Patreon. So if you want to subscribe to the PDO guest Patreon, there's two extra shows every week on there. We have. had five total this week and we're going to keep that going now that the regular season is upon us. That is all for the first week of shows. I hope everyone is a great weekend and we'll see you right back here early next week. Thank you for listening to the HockeyPedio cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.