The Hockey PDOcast - Teams Struggling Offensively, Next Gen Goalies, and Four Nations

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Sean Shapiro to talk about the Red Wings offensive struggles this season, the next generation of goalies, excitement about the upcoming Four Nations tournament, and communication between GMs and coaches regarding player usage. 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.

It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Amitra Filipovich and joining me as my good buddy, Sean Shapiro. Sean, what's going on, man? I'm getting ready to watch some daytime hockey and have to figure out how to get NHL network on the television here today. So that's one of the great challenges of watching hockey in the United States. When a game is on NHL Network, you have to scramble to find a place with said channel. So that's my task after this show today.

Yeah, despite our frustrations about the NHL network, and it's more accessible for me here because shout out my employer, Sportsnet, I can still watch the NHL Network's games on SportsA now here in Canada, but we're still stuck with the actual NHL Network broadcast, which in my opinion is quite inferior to the other national broadcasts we get, despite some of the frustrations with ESPN in their coverage, it's still far superior, it lapse it in that regard.

So that's frustrating at the same time, though. Love the matinee games we talked about now. Oh, yeah. For me, I'm sitting at the office anyway, so just having a game to watch while it work is very exciting. In particular, this back-to-back between the stars and the Panthers playing overseas in Finland this weekend, right?

That's, it's almost too convenient to be hyped as a Stanley Cup final preview because we know the NHL never works that way and it's probably going to be someone surprising that makes a bid there. it come the postseason, but based on the track record of these teams, you know, how close the stars were

as yet last year, obviously the Panthers have gone there in the past two years and how good they look yet again. It feels like it almost can be set up as that way and kind of hype that way. So that's pretty exciting. I'm excited to really watch these games. It is that, I mean, it's, it's who knows about Stanley Cup final preview

because that's always, that's predicting the future, which is very dangerous. But it is the two teams that have played the most two games the last two seasons. That is, that is that is factually true. The stars and Panthers have played more hockey than any other two teams the last two years. Obviously, Panthers back to back Cup finals, stars back to back Western Conference finals. So that it is factually true.

It is the teams who have been on average based on games played the most successful the past two years. Obviously, one of them has a Stanley Cup. One does not. So that's a big, big asterisk there. If the Dallas stars were the natural predators, they'd probably hang a banner saying second most games played over the past two years. The listeners can't obviously see this because they're just listening to us, but you and I are on Zoom here as we chat. And I was noting before we went on the air, I dyed my hair blonde for my Halloween costume this year, and I'm going to keep it for a week or two. I'm going to pretend that it's in tribute to Rupa Hince and him being back home in his look of choice.

Now, all I'm missing is that gold helmet that he was wearing in practice. I got to get one of those. are you also you also got to get the uh we got to get the shoes right so i don't know if you saw he he he he he's releasing his signature ace of spade's shoe that has been uh coming up that so i mean i feel like we both got a i feel like this is something we both have to get a pair of those right like i think i think that's kind of required wear now for the future of this show right you think that's something that's going to catch on you think you're going to be just seeing people walking down the street and being like hey are you wearing the new rupe henses

I hope so Make it NHL I'd love to see just like multiple NHL players wearing Rope Hens shoes That would be that that would make my day All right well we've got a jam packed episode Here on this Friday morning

And we've actually got to try to stay on script for once Between you and I generally we kind of go off the rails One of us bring something up the other one just starts riffing on it for 10 minutes But I want to get through all this stuff So we're going to work our way through it. Let's start quickly with Detroit Red Wings, because you and I were messaging about this. I assume you were at the game against the Winnipeg Jets a couple days ago.

It was the most recent one, the Red Wings have played. And it was the latest in a series of what I would describe favorably to them as underwhelming performances, certainly, that it was just like a certain vibe to it. Obviously, Winnipeg scored a couple goals early and really took them out of it that looked almost defeat. Now, they're sitting with a four, five, and one record. You and I spoke last week after that frozen frenzy game they played where they won with

just 10 shots against the New York Islanders. Out of those four wins they have this year, or in them, I should say, they've been outshot 151 to 77 by my account, which is truly amazing and a testament to how well their goalies, in particular, Alex Linen, and a couple of those played and sort of dragging them to victory. I don't know how you feel about this, but, you know, it shouldn't be surprised in anyone that's kind of been following this team and just looks, just pulls up their depth chart on daily faceoff that they're struggling defensively and giving up so many shots, right? Like, they're still using Ben Chirot and Jeff Petrie in top four minutes as a defense pair now combined because they're trying to free up Mo Cider to play a little with Edmondson. And, you know, the returns on that have been encouraging enough that you want to see more reps between the two of them moving forward. but in those minutes they're just getting completely massacred

and I don't even need to list the 5-1-5 numbers because they're as grizzly as you'd expect. What I have thought has been jarring, though, is how noticeably they're lacking any juice offensively as a team. And listen, like last year, they were scoring a lot of goals and getting into very kind of back-and-forth running gun,

high-scoring environments, and that's why I had them really high on my watchability rankings again this year because I really enjoyed watching those games. A lot of it was driven by, powerplay success and their powerplay has still been pretty effective if you look on a permanent basis in terms of how much they're scoring on it but just even throw the numbers aside just from the eye test and watching these games you watch a game like that against the jets and it's tough

to almost cobble together a vision of how they're actually going to even create some form of offense at 5-1-5 right whether it's a quick strike goal and they've been scoring a few of those off of turnovers and kind of like moments of individual brilliance from their top players, but especially a sustained form of offense, right? Like, how are they going to attack the opposing defensive structure? How are they going to get into that home plate area, that inner slot? You look at their heat map. They're not getting any looks there.

They're not getting any high danger chances. And I think that to me is the biggest indictment of this team, right? It's clearly a flawed team. It's not a Stanley Cup contender by any means. But if you were going to make an argument for, all right, well, you're going to build off the good vibes last year, where they played to game 82 and at least had a shot to make the playoffs.

And now they're going to take another logical step in this rebuild and actually be a playoff team, whether it's a wildguard team or taking advantage of the Atlantic Division kind of slipping in some regards. We haven't seen that. And I think that's almost unjustifiable to me because you have offensive players on this team.

You've had enough years now, I think, to put together some sort of game plan for that. And that's just been clearly lacking right now under Derek Lalonde. Yeah, we talked about this last week, right? When I kind of, I said something along the lines of, I don't really know what the offensive plan is here. And I got a little bit of, I got a couple people who were Wings fans who messaged me after we did the show last week, who said, like, well, hey, maybe this is just a slow start. And now a week later, I don't feel any better.

Like, my statement still stands from a week ago of, I don't really know what the offensive plan is here. and we're just getting more proof that they don't really know what the offensive play at is here. And I look at the wings that the thing that is kind of part of it was last year, one of the kind of saving graces offensively, not saving graces, but one of the big things last year was Kane came in and he was much better than expected, right? Like coming off that surgery, we had no idea what he was going to be. And he was still a five-on-five contributing player. Patrick Kane, whether it's, I don't want to call it a,

Patrick Kane has basically been nothing more than a power play specialist so far this year. That's one thing. They lose David Perron and bringing Teresenko in to replace him as been a major flop so far. Teresenko hasn't fit with this roster and how, and how they play. It's, it's very, it's concerning. And it's, you try to find, you look and you find solutions and, right now I know it's November 1st and it's someone's going to listen to this and tell me I'm saying this too early but right now you

wonder if this team is just at some point the glass break fix the offense is the quote unquote new coach bump where they struggle enough and then at some point the the GM's like well I got to I got to do something and I can't move the entire roster so I'm going to make a coaching change like it's and I'm not even saying that like actually works but that's just, it's, it's hard to look at this Detroit team and say, okay, I see how they come out of this rough start, this kind of, and it's 500, right? Like, points wise, they're doing okay. But it's not nearly enough compared to both expectations and what they need to do if they're going to contend. So, yeah, man, I don't know. Like, it's, it's, it's getting, you go to the rink right now and you try to

find solutions and you watch from like our media chair and you're like, I don't know how this team is going to, I don't know how they're going to do it, if they're going to do it. And that's, that's, that's concerning. It's 10 games, but it's 10 games where they're averaging 24.4 shots per 60, which is dead last, 8.7 high danger chances per 60, which is dead last. At 515, they're 28th in goals, 30 second and shots, 30 second in chances. As I mentioned, the heat map, there's just nothing in the middle of the ice in terms of their game plan or attack at 515. The 31st by Swar Logic's data in offensive zone time. They're 32nd.

in inner slot shots. Like these are, this isn't struggling. This is impotent offense. This goes back to, I had, not the back and forth, but we had,

I think it was on Thursday, either Friday or Thursday, last week, no, it was the middle of this week, where Derek Lalonde was talking about the, before the Jets came to town, he was talking about how someone asked the natural question of like,

well, that team leads the league in shot attempts. You guys let up more shots than anyone else? Like, where is this all? going and Derek Lalonde went to the defense of like well we lead the league and rush defense and I gave a bit of the counter that was kind of shruged off of like well it's hard to give up as many rush chance it's hard to give up many rush chances when you're never in a spot where teams are

in their own when you're all the all when you're in your defensive zone of the entire time it's hard to give up rush chances like when the other team is never coming out of their defensive zone it's very hard to give up rush chances so yeah that's not like great. You're not giving up a lot of rush chances, but the other team is never in a spot where they even have somewhere to rush from. Yeah, if the other team is just constantly cycling the puck and getting 90 seconds of offensive zone time in a row where they're just shot after shot, they're not having to rush the puck as much against you. That is definitely true, Derek. Exactly. Yeah, it's, I don't know, I don't know how you feel about this, because obviously you're around the team on a daily basis. You get to talk to people. I think, you know, as I think you've written, recently, everyone within an organization, kind of by Steve Eisenman's mandate, is pretty tight-lipped about this stuff, right? Like, they kind of close ranks. There, no one's going to

really talk about it in terms of, like, you'd have to give them truth serum almost, or catch them on a night with a couple beers and chat about it off the record, at least. But how do you parse, like, how much of this is, I think it's clearly a good burden of it is Steve Eisenman's doing in terms of just looking at the players they've chosen. to invest money in throughout the past couple free agency periods, how they've chosen to sort of, I think almost like fast track whatever this process is by like bringing in sort of like guys they view as reliable veterans and NHL like players that they can just plug in right away, even if it means blocking other young players they've drafted in recent years to try and like

have a level of competency right away. And how much of it is that and the personnel restricted the coaching and how much of it is Derek Lawn in terms of like his nature and his own sort of preferences playing this way, right? Because I think it's one thing not to have the firepower, but then you watch some of these games and

pretty clearly whether it's just sort of survival mode on their part. They're almost actively and willingly partaking in it where like they've seemed very comfortable not really trying to do anything and just sort of sitting back. And I mean, that Islander's game is obviously a very extreme example where they score early and essentially just park the bus and decide, all right, we're going to try to win this game one nothing.

That's clearly not a sustainable way to play throughout the full season. And I'm not sure how much of that is like what the coach can really do here and whether he even wants to do anything different than this. We're starting to see the seeds of discontent between where the GAM and the coach are not on the same page. It kind of started a little bit last year where there was a point where Derek Llan publicly spoke about how there was essentially some young players that he felt were ready for the NHL that that were going to get an opportunity that never got an opportunity.

And then I was the one who asked Steve Eiserman about it the next day. And Steve said, well, sometimes the coach thinks what he thinks and sometimes he knows what he knows. And then this year, it's been pretty notable to me about the amount of times that Derek Lelon has brought up the name David Perron and Shane. Gostas Bear this year. Two guys who like he talks about how good Gostas Bear was at running the power play last year. He talks about how important Peron was to that team last year. Like two guys that the coach keeps bringing up even though they're in different organizations is a pretty clear indicator to me of a GM making the coach not necessarily agreeing with movement and moving things. Look at Eric Gustafson signing, right? Like his, that's been a complete flop so far. He's been awful when he's played and he's been he was supposed to be the Gasta Spare replacement. So we're seeing the seeds of discontent there. The other night, Patrick Kane was a bit honest post-game where he said he's effectively not here to block

shots and he definitely showed some frustration with the sitting back. So we're seeing that, we're seeing things start to bubble. And as someone who covered the end of Jeff Blaschell's tenure in Detroit, it's starting to feel a little bit like that. It's not full-blown yet, But like near the end of Jeff Blaschell's tenure, one of his go-to lines when it came to players and roster's decision, he started saying, oh, that's a Steve question, that's a Steve question, that's a Steve question. And Steve doesn't really speak to the media very often. And we haven't gotten Derek Langell ongoing, that's a Steve question yet. But there is starting to feel very similar to the end of Blaschell's time here just from both a vibe and being around the team and everything like that. And that's, definitely not what they expected for year three of they brought in this coach and they thought they were going to be part of this rebuild and everything like that. And it feels like a bit of just a retread of what happened with Jeff Blashele before right now. And that's not a great sign. Yeah, the reason why I thought this was an interesting topic for us to start with, just watching that game against the Jets this week.

I couldn't help but shake the feeling that if you were going to wager on first coach fired this season, Derek Lohen's. seems like a pretty good bet at this point for that. And I'm not sure, honestly, how much of it is deserved or not, because as I said, I don't think there's necessarily very clear evidence that he wants to play some sort of alternative style. Like, I think as long as they're winning games, I think he's probably pretty happy and they want a couple of games playing this way. And so they're just going to try to keep doing that. But just clearly, like, he's going to be the person as like the next logical move here to take the blame if this continues right and I do think it is a pretty disappointing development watching this because like this is just an unacceptable

offensive strategy that we just listed with their output and like averaging 24 shots a game in today's climate is just is wild to me but like I said I think it's more deeper rooted I don't I think it's kind of convenient to just put it all on his doorstep as well because the personnel And that's and that's the other thing I got pushed back when I brought up last week when on your show and I talked about saying like people start to put the impetus and start to question Steve Eisenman a little more for this. There's still some people who there are still some diehard Eisenman truthers that are always going to, that are going. blindly trust. Yes. Yeah.

And it's it's a bit of the. I think Steve Eisenman has the benefit. of it's been hard sometimes for fans to separate Steve Eisenman from the number 19 that hangs in the rafters, right? Like I think there's a bit of that sometimes franchise legend, everything like that. And it also goes into the media perspective, too, because I think part of the way the wings have been covered for so long in general is it's a lot of people who are been pushing and been basically accepting that this is going to take time and they're waiting for Eisenman to do it. And I tend to be, and I give Max Bolton some credit for this too, our buddy over our buddy Max and Sam Socton, who's started covering the team for the hockey news, has done a pretty good job of being a little bit more contrarian.

But I'm a little bit more of the one, not the one contrary and the other guys are too, but it's a little bit more of a lot of the media conversation is trust Steve Eiserman. Like I was listening to the radio driving home the other night and local radio is like, oh, well, Steve Eisenman is going to make the right move. He knows this better than you do. Now, that same show also said Axel Sandine Palika is ready to play in the NHL right now. So that gives you an idea of the hockey credence of said show. But it's still, Steve Iserman is in this town has been allowed to be Steve Iserman number 19. And oh, just wait, he'll figure it out. It'll get there.

Don't worry. Yeah, I thought you described it. I'm going to get some feedback for that comment. So I'm ready for it. Well, I thought you described it very well in a recent piece, sort of this idea of them wanting to take. the risk out of their game and that goes all the way back to the off season and you mentioned per on there certainly I and gossus bear I'd include obviously our boy Daniels prong as well who's yes yes a great antidote to a lot of what ails

them in terms of instant infusion of offense I also I know he struggled last year certainly for them but paying the sharks the 53rd overall pick or whatever to take on a very reasonable contract figure for a guy like Jake Wallman and then you look this year nine points in 12 games. I know he's playing on a shark's team that's not going anywhere, although credit to them, they've got a three-game winning streak here.

The sharks are rolling. But he's playing with Cody CC at 5-15, and the sharks are up eight to five in his minutes. He's got a 52% shot and expected goal share. Like, he's a good player. And he's a player who also freelances and creates a bit and is willing to push the envelope offensively. And then you look at this team,

and it's like, all right, these are things they're sorely missing. And that's why I say it's not necessarily, just a coaching or a managerial thing. I think it's an organizational thing where they clearly, it was on their agenda and their to do list to actively steer in this direction, right? And so I just think it's pretty tough to justify not only based on the results, but also like where they're at right now where it's like, I get it.

Sometimes I don't necessarily agree with it, but when a team has come really close to winning it all or like they're right near the precipice of the mountain top and then they're like, all right, well, we need to tighten a few. screws here, there on the margins, and we feel like this can make a difference, I can at least see that idea where it's like, all right, well, you're close enough. You have a high enough baseline where now you can start thinking that way. This is a team that has just so much more work to do that it seems kind of like very short-sighted, I guess, to be approaching it that way. So I think that's

where a lot of my frustration stems. That's all I've got on the Red Wings. I don't know if you want to add anything else, but I was just, I was just saying they were they were more fun last year, right? Like, it was more fun going to watch them play at the rank last year. And part of it, I know winning is the end goal and everything like that. But you and I have talked, I like going to enjoy watching the hockey in front of me. And it's been hard to enjoy what the wings have intentionally been doing so far this season. Yeah. And I say that from a place of, like, like you, I really enjoyed it last year. And that's why I selfishly wanted to change because I wanted to get back to at least where it was last year. Okay, let's talk goalies a little bit here,

because I was watching Mark Andre Fleury's last appearance in Pittsburgh earlier this week and someone in the PDCast Discord, I forget who now, but they made a great point that I want to bring up here and sort of use it as a Kickstarter for a conversation about the position with you, that him and Jonathan Quick, who's obviously near the end of his career as well as a backup in New York, are represents sort of the last vestiges of this era of goalies with, like, distinctive playing styles and a certain flare and I guess like uniqueness

to their game and their approach and like how they just act out there and if we're not already there soon we're going to be at this position where you look at just the goaly landscape and everyone is just going to look and play the same and we've already definitely steered in that direction but it's essentially just going to be

a lineup of six foot six robots who all play the same way and look the same way and their only sort of manufacturer's defect is that they're going to have puck zinged off with their helmet and into the net every time they drop down to the reverse VH and then we'll see if there's an adjustment after that but it certainly seems like everything's being telegraphed

towards that direction. And I don't know, I think it's an interesting thing and we can also use that as a launching point to talk about, I guess maybe like Canadian goalies and I wanted to talk about the Four Nations a little bit we hear with you. in preparation for that and obviously their sort of options looking pretty limited and this has been the case for a while now pretty much ever since Kerry Price's prime but I just think like I think

that's an interesting sort of direction we're headed in I guess and and watching Flurries last game in Pittsburgh made me sort of think about that angle yeah you know this is a passionate topic for me I'm a big believer that the position has become so overly coached and it's gotten caught and it's gotten caught by forward coaching and individual, uh, the, the fact that basically the goalies are now, goalies used to be problem solvers and now there's so much, they're just, they've been given this manual and very few of them actually. And guys,

if you reach the NHL, you are a problem solver, but in general, it's, it's not nearly what it used to be. And it's also one of the reasons that I, I love watching Dustin Wolf play because I feel like Dustin Wolf is someone who, in the current trend of

everyone of they roll out of the factory like this. Dustin Wolf came out of a different factory so it's why I love whenever whenever he's playing for Calgary that becomes appointment viewing for me but yeah it's the position is

I think the baseline has never been higher because of this factory setting but it's also everyone that's just like a video game now where everyone it's You kind of people, everyone else has kind of figured out, okay, well, this is how you beat that factory setting. You just have to be able to execute on it.

And I, but like, that's one of, Lurie's legacy to me is the longevity. But the fact that he played where you could watch a game and if you didn't have a jersey, a number on it, you could like, oh, I know that's Mark Andre Flurry, right? And he was very fun in that way. And there's a lot of big goalies now that all look the same. And if you didn't have, if you just kind of did a way to cover the, cover the jersey and the pads, you could be like, oh, who's that? And you'd have like, I don't know. And so, but yeah, big Dustin Wolf truth.

True for it's truth here because I, I hope that, I hope that if I hope that this show is still going on 18 years from now. We can talk about Dustin Wolf and the way he did it his way. So. Yeah, I love Dustin Wolf. I mean, his work rate in that is so fun to watch. And obviously, that's out of necessity, right? He has to work around whatever limitations he has compared to his peers of the position. But he's such a battler out there, and I appreciate that so much.

And he's had a good year. That's a good shout, because when I was thinking about this topic, I had two guys listed as sort of our, you know, quote-unquote, next-gen, and saviors at the position that could provide hope at least for future entertainment. And they were Peter Kachikov. I don't know if you got to see the highlights from the game he played in Vancouver a couple days ago. But he was absolutely on one. It really captured the essence.

And, you know, the good and the bad, certainly. but he's just, I think I can, you know, describe him as an eccentric lunatic in that, essentially. He's really taken to heart. That's a great way to put it. He's taken to heart Rod Brindamore's theory of like pressure hockey and how he wants the hurricane's to play. And he's like, oh, okay, you want me to contest zone entries of the blue line? All right, I'll do it. And Roderbrenum was like, no, no, that wasn't what I was saying.

And he's just just running out there trying to poke check everything. You know, it clearly exposes him at times. There was the play against the Canucks. I think it was the tie-ing goal in that game and Carolina wound up winning in overtime where he got too far out ahead of his skis there but he's really fun to watch

and the other guy for me was Lucas Dostow and I want to talk to you a little bit about him as well because I know he just lost in Pittsburgh last night but it was the latest in a long list of epic performances he's had so far this season and he was one of my guys heading into the season and he's taken full advantage of John Gibson's absence to start the year and he's just been incredible

And so I think those are two guys who, I mean, listen, they're still like six two or whatever, I think each. So they're not necessarily short kidding. But also just watching them play, it is a bit more distinctive to me than, you know, whatever. Daniel Vodard, Aden Hill, whatever sort of like giant goalie that looks exactly the same as the guy next across the ice from him is and plays like. I love Lucas Dostle's game. I love watching him play. that's uh he was luckily he had one of those games against detroit last year and it was the game do you remember he he went for the empty net and missed by like six inches like it was just like the

perfect encapsulation of like this is like showtime superstar hockey from a goalie and i just i love the way he plays like he's uh you're in a time zone where it's normal time for you to watch those guys but like i talked about wolf before like there's a bunch of the guys who and i think once Ascarov gets it all together, he's going to be up there too. Like, you know, I'm a big Ascarov guy. Like, it's West Coast late night, late night goalies are kind of the future for me, because with the way, they all end up being playing in that Pacific time zone right now. Yeah. And Al Delsal had the, uh, the goal in the HL as well previously. So that's, we know that's in his bag. It wasn't a one time isolated event. I mean, he's been remarkable

this season. I got a few stats for you here. He has gotten the ducks. 10 out of 16 possible points. In his eight appearances, despite the fact that they've been outshot in very Red Wings fashion, 291 to 209 in those games, and high danger chances are 129 to 67, so twice as much essentially for the opposition.

And he has a 9.45% percentage. He saved, according to Sporting, nearly 15 goals above expected in eight games. Another 44 out of 46 performance in Pittsburgh last night. Fortunately, he was very mean by Cindy Crosby, to freeze him like that one-on-one, deep in his net and convert a nice overtime winner. But he was remarkable in that game, stole a point for them. And he's been awesome.

I want to keep seeing more. Even when John Gibson comes back, he's clearly the future. And he has really delivered on all the hype that I had for him. With that being said, though, I'm officially worried about the ducks, especially under Greg Cronin, kind of falling to a similar fate that we just discussed with the Red Wings, where they seem hell-bent on suppressing any form of offense and essentially just parking the bus and sitting back and whoever is not going to play that way

is going to get their minutes taken away or are going to be reprimanded and not be used accordingly. And it's very frustrating to watch because it's another young team that I get there trying to sort of play quote unquote the right way and learn how to compete in the NHL. We saw this towards in the last year from them. It's been a carryover.

And it's disappointing because even when they're banking points, it's ultimately not the way they're going to need to play if they're going to reach whatever peak version they're going to be with this sort of young nucleus they have. And so just as an unbiased kind of outside viewer, I can't help but be frustrated by it. It makes me sad what they might be doing to Pavel Mintikov, right? Because like you had this,

you had a really great show last year where you went to film, film room with Mintikov. And it was, you guys brought up about how he's been able to kind of play this way, and that was earlier in the season, and play this style that, like, let him grow into it and let it be him for his career. And I look at that team right now, and he's still Pavel Mintyikov to an extent, but that's a young player. I wanted, I didn't want to see anyone put

breaks on this kid. I wanted to see him, I want to see him at 25. I want to see him keep going and going and going. And it's, so it's not just a this overall team perspective. It's a, I, there's a young I wanted to see that I think could go further and further in their career that I'm worried that they're now stunting his development by by playing this way. Yeah, I still remain completely optimistic about him because I think he's just sort of like. He's that good. He's that good. But there's a line, right? There's a line if he can be this good.

And then there's when do you get to, as in your 22, 23 year old season, do you get to make some of those mistakes? So as a 25 and 26 year old, you're just that much better. Yes. No, I completely agree. I think that he can sort of break the mold in that regard. But then you watch a guy like Mason McTavish, for example, in early last season, I was very encouraged by his development and what he was already putting on tape. And then now this year, just struggling so much, like taking penalties, getting his ice time taken away, not shooting the puck anymore, not using his biggest weapons. Trevor Zegris, kind of changing the way he's playing as well to sort of try to fit in because the coach clearly is sending that message. And yeah, it's, it's disconcerting. disappointing and something they definitely track, but it's kind of a trend around the league we're seeing right now, unfortunately. All right, Sean, let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we'll, we'll jump right back into it and we'll close out today's show with a few other topics. You're listening to the Hockey P.D.O.cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the Hockey-Ocast, on this Friday morning closing out the week here

in the PDO cast. Sean, we talked about the Red Wings. We've talked about the goalie position. I've got a few other topics here. We'll see how many of them we can get through. I'll give you your pick of the litter here to kick us off. We can talk about the Finland series between the stars and the panthers. We already kind of, you know, broach the topic a little bit off the top. But if you have any notes on that, we can talk about the four nations. I know you wrote about franchise values recently on your site as well. And then I've got a mystery listener question here as well that we could also do. I'll give you the floor, which one do you is the most interesting topic.

Let's do franchise values, and if we have time, we can get Finland, but I definitely even streak me by the mystery box. I want to get to the mystery. So let's talk franchise. If you feel as time, we have time to talk to the Finland game's great. If not,

let's just go straight to the mystery box after that. Okay, so you noted in that piece that every team, I believe, is estimated now at over the $1 billion threshold in the league, which is a nice development for the league. I guess it's the segue here is talking about just the general health of the NHL product, right? Because I think people like you and I and devoted viewers of this league are often frustrated with the way the NHL manages its operation, how its efforts are going to like grow the game and market it and sort of appeal to a larger audience, the mainstream audience, as opposed to just the sort of regional segmentation of like everyone just cares about their local team and that's about it.

and you have your fans already who have been following the league for a while, and we're happy with that. We don't care about branching out. Obviously, in comparison to the other North American pro leagues, it's still lagging behind, but it's still on an upward trajectory there. So what are your thoughts on that and kind of where we're at right now from a valuation perspective?

Yeah. To me, the big one is it's these franchise rankings, and as I put in that piece, they're always reflective of what the most recent sales have done, right? like so Utah so the Ryan Smith spending one point two billion to get Utah out of Arizona that effectively move the entire market right like now of a sudden Utah is like the 28th most valuable franchise or whatever it is according to the list and they were a $675 million franchise a year ago

when they were in Arizona so it's it's a big reflection of what is the sale price for these teams the other other thing for me that's just interesting when when these pieces come out and these valuations is it shows you how much the NHL right now is a value play. Like, you have to have a lot of money to get into it, right? But if you have that type of money from a ROI and a value play, it's, you're, it's ripe to do it. It's, the teams are not as expensive as an NBA or an MLB or an NFL team. So it's something where the point of entry is a little bit lower. I know we're talking about billion dollar entry points, but it's still compared to trying to try to go look at NFL franchise values.

Just go look at it, right? So it's why, like Jeff Finnic, right? So he goes and sell, he recently sold part of the majority ownership share of the lightning deal that's going to be like, I think it's a three-year process or whatever for him to sell at a $1.8 billion dollar valuation. And it's why more people are interested in getting into getting pieces of. of NHL teams is we've seen more private equity come into NHL lately because they've seen all of that. And it's what these lists do. And I think it's more of a reflection of the health of what it is for the owners and not necessarily the health of the league. Right. Like I think for the league perspective, it shows this is an unstoppable rarity item. Right. There's only 32 pro teams. And so no matter how

well you management there will only always be 32 and you will never have another hockey league contend with it but it also brings up the frustration that you and i have talked about where if this is what's happening right now with some of the bare minimum efforts from the growth and the way team run and everything like that just imagine if you had some more forward thinking in running these and growing the game this way and that's kind of i didn't write that in the piece but that's another thing i can't help but look at that where if this is if you're going up half a million dollars, if you're up $500 million in value from one year

to the next with what you've been doing, just imagine what you could have done with some other push some other real hard growth into this league as well. So that's something that I can't help but think about when I see these lists. Yeah, the blind optimist fall off to that would be all right, well, more money

coming in hopefully means more money going out or improving the product, especially with the cap going up and teams being more willing to spend and all of that. But I think as we know, the reason and why they get rich is because, yeah. The interesting thing I would love, like, the truth serum on something is, like, this isn't hockey-related revenue.

This is just franchise value. Yes. Right? This is just franchise value. So people see that, and it's like, I think people get kind of lost of like, oh, well, this might mean the salary cap will go up and everything like that. Well, franchise value has nothing to do to hockey-related revenue. And it's one of those things where I would love to give some truth serum to Marty Walsh,

who's the NHLPA head, who's already a little bit. more brash than his predecessor running the NHLPA, but I would, I would love to hear, like, I would love to get a little bit of truth serum to Marty on, okay, when you see these franchise values going up and you see this, how does that start to frame your battles with the league, with when it comes to the next CBA? Because clearly right now it's a 50-50 revenue split, hockey-related revenue, yada, yada, yada, but these owners are continuously going up on value and value. and to use Gary Betman's words, the league has never been in a better spot

because of the players. So how soon does Martin, like if I'm Marty Walsh, that's PowerPoint slide one when the CBA, when the next CBA negotiation opens up because this is a place where the owners are benefiting. And if you're a player, like I talked to a player yesterday,

or talks to the one yesterday, who was like, great, the franchise value goes up. I didn't, it's not like we instantly got a, it's not like we instantly got some more money for us. it. Yeah, just like every player entering training camp, the NHL is in the best shape of its life. Yes, best shape of its life. All right.

The reason why I had the Four Nations on my list here, I don't know if you have any notes on it. We still have so much time to get into the nitty-gritty of it because it's happening in mid-February and I'm sure when rosters get finalized. That'll be a good discussion point for us so we can revisit it then. But I just want to bring it up to you because I'm doing these Sunday shows with our pal Thomas Drance now and he keeps talking about it and like through his conversations with not only players but execs and kind of agents and people around the sport. I think certainly the importance

to the players themselves is legitimate because I think like who makes it versus who doesn't to not only represent their countries but get to play on this stage of best on best where they slot in in particular within those teams kind of like whatever hierarchy presents itself I think is going to be very instructive and important to them specific. specifically. From a fan perspective, though, whenever we talk about it, everyone on the Discord is like, I don't really care that much about it. I'm sure once the game started, people will get into it. But right now, it kind of seems like this distant sort of vision that you can't really wrap your head around. I'm curious about your take on sort of the marketing of it, building fan interest, excitement, and kind of like what the logical next steps are and whether people really should care about it ultimately. I think we'll care more about it when we get closer to it from a fan perspective. Like I think it's something that we should care about. It's going to be great hockey.

It's going to be the marketing line is it's going to be best on best. And that's going to be great. I'm really looking forward to seeing this because we haven't had it. From a player perspective, I think it is driving some players a little bit internally that, like, I don't even, it's not even a secret. Like, I've spoken to Jake Ottinger the past. Jake Continger wants to be the team USA goalie, right? Like he is very much a set. He'll say it, I want to be the best goal in the world.

And being the best goal in the world means being the best goalie for team USA. Big motivation for him to prove he's in that echelon of conversation. And obviously before the Damco injury, there was a real question of whether he was going to even make that team this year with Halibuck and Swayman and Demco, right? So there's that. And so I think one of the reasons that was. we haven't had a little bit more of the hype about it is like you talk to players about it and they're willing to be excited about it in the small conversations right like like in here in Detroit right Dylan Larkin's probably going to be on team USA and he's probably going to be like a third line

center on that team play a little bit more of a defensive role with with that team and everything like that and that's going to be fun and you know what maybe with the way Detroit's playing he'll be perfect for playing a more defensive role but the uh but Dylan Larkins is never going to go out and say, I'm looking forward to playing meaningful hockey for the first time in eight years, right? Like, I think that's part of it right now, too, where there's a little bit of this kind of weird, like, players are seeing it as a motivator and a factor. And a lot of guys see it as that you get to this team. That is kind of step A to being on the Olympic team. Because I think the Olympic team is the real prize in 2026, especially with these four teams. So I think a lot of players see this as that opportunity. But it's also very hockey where it's like, well, business will take care of itself. I'm going to play for my team. Like, it's why I think some of my favorite comments have come from guys who aren't able to play in this because of the team. Like, I talked to, I talked to Mort Sider the other day about it where he was just gushing about the opportunity to be able to actually play with Dry Sightal at some point, right?

Where Germany is obviously not in this four nations tournament, but Germany will be in the 2026 Olympics. and that will be Sider's first real opportunity to play with the best version of Team Germany, right? With Sider and Stutzla and Paterka and I guess Ghrubauer would be the goalie. But like all of a sudden, like there's true excitement. And I think the guys who aren't in the tournament from the nations that aren't able to play in it, give us a little better look of how everyone's feeling about it. But everyone else who has a chance to actually play in this, it's a very hockey of, well, I'm focused on my job with the Anaheim Ducks right now or the New York Rangers right now.

And I think that has hurt it a bit. Like, just even the whole, like, Sydney, like, Sydney Crosby should be captain's story from McDavid the other day. Like, we're just trying to pull teeth to get guys to actually talk about this because they don't want to be the subject of attention. Yeah. I think from our perspective, just breaking up the monotony of the regular season, especially at that point of the schedule where I think it's needed is going to be very valuable. Like, I think it's going to be sort of this new entity that similar in a sense to what the, in-season tournament did for the NBA last year, for example, I think it's just going to, it's just a new thing that I think is going to be fun to talk about and watch and see

develop and unfold. So, okay, we can talk more about that later. Okay, here's a listener question. Okay. I'm ready. I have no idea what it is. So I'm very excited about this. Well, I'm curious because obviously, I think especially, you know, we were your time covering the Red Wings, but even dating back to your stars, you know, just conversations with people. I'm curious where you take this. A question that occurs to me whenever you talk young players development is, do you think GMs instruct their coaches to restrict young players' usage, particularly on PowerPlay 1, for example, so that their point totals stay artificially lower so that the GM has more leverage to negotiate more team-friendly deals on a future contract?

I'm thinking of guys like Lafranier, Yelers, Landel, Thomas Harley, for example, who have gone through this. It's obviously a strategy that only teams with an up-depth can pull off, but I wonder if GMs are doing that. I'm curious for your take on this, whether it's as intentional as that or whether it's part of a big picture vision and kind of also just the organizational interplay, I guess, and communication, you know, from top down, obviously from ownership. And we've seen owners intervene at times in certain occasions. But then like the communication on a day-to-day month-to-month season-season basis between the GM and coach in terms of like how players are used and sort of how that fits within the team structure, I guess. Yeah, all 32 coaches and GMs will say the coach makes the roster decisions, or the lineup decisions. All 32 will say that. In my experience, and I think sometimes we get little slips through the cracks of people admitting the truth on this is, like,

I believe typically the first 40 to 50 games of an NHL season kind of based off my experience and talking to coaches and players and not, no one really wants to admit this publicly. but the first 40 to 50 games, the GM is a big hand in who plays and where they're playing, right? Like, it's, it's now it depends on different organizations have different sway and pull versus who the coaches and who isn't, right? But the, like in Dallas, one of the reason Nils Lundkiss, like Nils Lundkiss is a great,

compared, is a great example. Like, so he basically got 60-something games last year because Jim Nill said he was going to get 60-something games. Pete DeBore would have, scratched and benched Nils Lundquist much earlier if he had his say from the beginning. Once he gets to the playoffs and it's time to

we're trying to win games, the GM says, okay, you do whatever you want, you're the coach, now it falls on you. But this is a, it definitely happens. Now, does a GM say to a coach,

I don't want a guy on PowerPlay 1 because of his points and leverage and contract negotiation, I don't think that's the case because I think there's, At the end of the day, both the GM and coach are judged by whether they're winning games or not. So that's, I think that tends to, like, self-preservation tends to overweigh that. But there is a, this is my guy.

There are got, there, there's every, every guy who ends up in an NHL organization is someone's, is likely someone's guy. They're either the coach's guy or the GM's guy, right? Like, and there are sometimes the GM will bring a couple of his guys in, and the coach will agree to play a couple of them. And, but he's not going to play all of them because they're not all his guys. And so it's it's that struggle and push between the two. And like I mentioned in Detroit, like, and this ties in really well to the Red Wings Condocept of David Perron and Shane and Shane Gassas pair being brought up all the time is a not so subtle messaging from Derek Leland to. Steve Eisenman that you sent my guys away. Like that's, so I, uh, it's one of those,

I would love some truth serum on guys on that because there is, uh, there, there are players who, uh, it's not just the contracts make jobs. It's the contracts make what mistakes you're allowed to make to. And that's, and that goes into, to play and, and the GM will, there's certain players that, there's certain players that if you're going to, if they're not going to play, it has to be a quote unquote organizational decision because the coach doesn't actually have the power to just, especially a younger coach, right?

Like, Jared Bednar or like a Jared Bednar or a John Cooper, right? Like the GM's not going to tell them what to do. But a coach who is a younger coach or a newer organization, there comes with some rules that they get told that no one else gets told. And that stays between them and the GM. Yeah, I don't think there's anything necessarily in McAvillian going on here in terms of like, you know, trying to artificially deflate your young players production to get them at a better price moving forward.

I think what happens ultimately is there's a, I think there's just a general deference to establish veterans in this league, right? We see that all across the board. That happens. And I think there's also there is the, it's not as bad as baseball with like the time served manipulation, but there is the, hey, we're going to kick things down the line and we're going to give a young guy nine games, right? So like that happens too. We all see that. And no one hides that.

But that's a part of it too. Well, listen, I think an important thing, like just to keep perspective here is obviously it's a luxury, especially when you're a contender to have young contributors on team friendly deals, right? Because then it allows you to have more expensive star players that are. a bit older and it just gives you a competitive advantage. At the end of the day, though, I always think it's a good problem if a young player forces you to pay a premium for them, because that means they've played really well and are developing well and they're been productive and you should be happy to pay them. And I think also from a sort of self-preservation perspective, you should note here that every GM, I'm sure, wants a player that they drafted in particular

high to succeed because it shines a positive light on the, them as well. We know that I had another question here. We can answer another time about sort of like giving up of either credit or blame for GMs in terms of drafting and like how responsible they are for certain picks and all that. And obviously it's on a case to case basis. But I think generally the way people perceive it is GMs have an outsized impact on who the team takes in the first round. And then after that there's a bit more of a deference to your sort of scouting team and reports because you're not going to be able to see all of them as just one person. So you have to trust your staff. But generally, the viability of first round picks is tied directly to the GM.

And so if your first round pick, especially if there's a lottery pick, is producing well and is held in high esteem and winds up getting a big contract, generally you're going to have staying power as a GM because that means you did something right, or at least that's the way it's perceived optically, right? And so I think every GM ultimately would, while you want to suppress the contracts, because it allows you to add more talent, it's a good problem to have, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

And the whole draft one's another great conversation to have because there is the, some GMs, some GMs have their hands on everything, not everything, but some GMs are a little way more involved in their pick. And then there's some GMs who, they're nothing more than maybe a crossover guy when it comes to the draft. Where their job is they basically, they just go to the draft and they're there and they're there. And they're like, okay, make the case for this guy. Okay, cool, do it. It depends on how the GM operates. too. Okay, well, let's save that for next time because I actually do think, especially Jim Nell

and the Stars and their track record is a very interesting case study for that. So maybe we can revisit that next time I have you on. Everyone go follow Sean's work at his substack shapshots. We're going to have them on again soon. For my plugs, go smash that five-star button, join the PDOCast Discord as well. We took that listener question. I thought it was an interesting one. We'll take more of them moving forward. So get in there and join us. And that's all from us today. I've got one more episode here to close all the week on the PDO cast, so I'll be back for that. But thank you, Sean, for coming on.

Thank you to everyone for listening to us here on the SportsNet Radio Network.