The Hockey PDOcast - The annual NHL watchability rankings part 1

Episode Date: October 17, 2022

Dimitri is joined by Thomas Drance and Cam Charron as they run through part 1 of the annual NHL watchability rankings. This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty.   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. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Progressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey Pediocast with your host, Dmitri Filipo. Welcome to the Hockey Ptio cast. My name is Dimitri Philipovic. And joining me is my good buddy, Thomas Duran. Thomas, what's going on? Dmitri, I'm glad to be here, especially for a really important two-part show. Two-part show indeed.

Let's go. We're going live from the Sports Net Studio with Cam Sharon. Also our buddy as well here. Cam, what's going on? Two-part show, two-guests show. That's right. There we go. I'm part one, KAM's part two.

No, no, we're all doing it together. Here's what we're doing. We're doing the PEOCast, semi-famous annual watchability rankings in which, let's give the listeners kind of a primer or a peek into our methodology first before we actually start ranking it just so they kind of get a sense of what we're doing. Because I think... We had some disagreement. We had some disagreement, but also, like, it's very clear to note that this isn't, like,

a power ranking. Yeah. It is correlated in the sense that if you have good players, you're probably going to win a lot of games and be exciting because good players do cool stuff. But there's some bad teams high up on our list that are high up for a reason. It's because they're so bad defensively but have enough skill themselves that they're going to get into kind of fun game environments. Cam was really upset with me for having the Buffalo Sabres ranked ahead of the Vancouver Canucks

as an example. And I don't think the Buffalo Sabres will be within 10 points of the Vancouver Canucks by the end of the year. But, I mean, they might be. But that's the perfect example of a team. Like, if you have Alex Tuck, you're going high up my watchability rankings. He's just so much fun to watch. There's no one else that size that moves like that.

And I sort of, as I went through it personally, I was sort of trying to prioritize teams that connect play or do enough cool things that while I'm watching, I'll think like, yes. Or like I'll be looking forward to one or two things that a couple of guys do or the way their power play operates or just sort of prioritizing that. And then at the bottom end, it's like, which games would I actually seriously consider watching, you know, Nuggets, Spurs, if that was the only game on that night. That's sort of how I get to. But I tiered it.

We'll go through it. I think after we made our rankings and discussed it, there were a few that I was too low on that you already convinced me on. So it'll be fun to go through. More than anything, though, I'm really happy to be doing this show with you this year, my first time getting to do the watchability rankings, in part because the true Game Center Live junkie and me has been having these internal conversations. forever. And now I get to share it and discuss what I like about various teams that, you know, I spend some degenerate hours watching. Well, and Cam, we should say we're going to update this list as the air goes along. I think, like, internally we're going to keep track of it in terms of like maybe we should do like every month kind of keep the list updated. But then we're going to do

like a mid-season show or something to kind of reflect where we, because the more these teams play, the more we see that, the more information we get, we're going to realize we were dead wrong. We're like, oh, maybe we should have been even higher in some of these. So instead of the annual watchability rankings. These are these semi-annual. Yeah. Or I mean, we can do it even more often. And we're also, we're really blowing it out this season because all three of us have submitted

our lists and then we averaged it. And then we're going to talk about discrepancies, maybe where we were individually higher or lower as it presents itself because, as Tom alluded to, there were some instances where he was clearly just way off. I was wrong. I was wrong on one in particular. This is also a sports net radio first where Tom gets to be wrong for three consecutive hour.

Nice one. I also, like, had some teams that I put aside. Like, I mean, we'll get started soon, but there were teams like Dallas, okay? Dallas is a team that because of my priors from last season, I want to rank very low, right? I had no time for watching Dallas try to do a boa constrictor act and rely solely on one line to do anything at all last year. And, and, you know, it felt like, it felt like watching Dallas was just like the reins are on Miro Hayskin. and then they have one cool line, and then that's it. Everything else is, like, sort of sad around the Dallas stars.

Ken, every time he does anything, there's people just filling my mention saying, Let Me Real Cook. So it's cool to hear that people will listen to our inaugural show. Seriously. I have another one, though, for the stars. Play the hints. Play the hints. But now, but now, two games into the season, you know, it's not enough for me to be like,

oh, Dallas is fun now. But they might be. Yeah. Right? I'm willing to consider that Dallas might deserve to be way higher on my list them where I rank them. I'm just not ready to do it off of two games yet. I feel like it could have just been a, you know, like a Black Swan Mason-Marchment highlight and, you know, one sort of game where they scored a bunch. So I'm not ready for them to move up my rankings, but I'm open

to being convinced as the season goes along. Well, we'll get to them as we get to the stars, I guess. Team by team, but here's the thing. So the logic for this is on a Saturday, and this is true most Saturdays where literally every team is somehow playing at the same time and you as a hockey fan, let's say you don't have allegiance to one particular team, you just want to watch the best game or the most interesting thing. This is what the ranking is for. It's like, oh, these teams are playing. I'm going to prioritize watching them above other teams for whatever reason. And it's a good point you brought up Tom because like prior certainly play into this. We've only seen most of these teams play like twice so far at this point, maybe once, maybe three times. But in the case

of a team like the stars, not to do a full star section here. But teams that have had coaching changes or like significant personnel changes, I find myself gravitating towards because early in the season, I make a point of wanting to see how much they differ from those priors. And for the stars, it's very encouraging through two games. Cam, what are you, before we get into this list, and we're going to do that in a minute here, what are you looking for? What are you, what are your priorities?

What are you, what type of hockey appeals to you the most? What are you from a game setting? Like, what emotionally gets you most invested? I think I have coach brain is a problem. So I'm looking for teams that given on is deference. You want to see guys grinding out there? No, what I want to see is I want to see some cohesiveness between defense and offense. And I just want to see a little bit of chaos as well.

I like watching high-scoring games, as anyone does. And I also like the teams that try and do something a little bit different. teams that play aggressive on the penalty kill. Here's my goal for the next two hours. There's a lot of teams that I boosted because they power kill. I don't like the term power kill. I know me neither, but it's fun. Here's my goal for the next two hours.

Bring up enough good points that Cam gets at least marginally excited because he just said the phrase what I like to watch about hockey and like the most somber tone I've ever heard. It is early in the more. morning, but we got to get, we got two and a half hours sleep. All right. Well, we're going to power through it. Let's start.

So we're going to go back to top. We're doing this in a two-parter, right? Okay. So we should say. So we're going to start from the top. I'm going to go 32 based on our average. And then we're going to bring it down. I think we should speed through the bottom teams and then focus most on like the actual,

most interesting top 10 to 15. So we probably won't split it up evenly between the two parts. We're going to kind of breeze through these ones because I think for like teams 32, 31. And 30. Because you want to get me excited about something. There's not that much interesting to say. Tom, 32 on our list. And I was the only one to rank them 32.

Both of you ranked them 31st. We had three different teams ranked at the bottom. Did we? Yeah. Well, 32 on our average, the Chicago Blackhawks. Wow. So I picked them 31st. I had them 31st.

And it's because they played on Saturday against the San Jose Sharks. And I knew that those teams in some order were 32 and 31 for me. Because I have enough morbid curiosity about the. Arizona Coyotes that I just couldn't possibly put them last. Like, no team with Vegmelka can be last for me. And I suspect you guys agree can like Carol the Thrill deserves a little bit more respect than that. So I was watching the game and I decided as I was watching it, I said, this is terrible and there's nothing about this game that's going to convince me that these are not the bottom two watchability teams. So I'm going to let whoever wins be 31. So I watched it.

So I watched it. And I thought whoever is third. It sounds like you should have. have these teams ranked significantly high. No, I, I legitimate, because I was thinking about this process and it was the third period and I was like, I'm going to watch the rest of this game. And whoever wins the game gets to be 31st and whoever loses the game gets to be 32nd. The Chicago Blackhawks powered by Jason Dickinson. That's right. Scored a nice goal, eh? Yeah.

That was a nice goal. Beat the San Jose Sharks and the San Jose Sharks. Here's the thing about the sharks. I'm pretty sure that I could go to a serious hockey fan or even like a hockey reporter, someone who works like in the business, not not like a pro scout, but like someone. outside that role in the business. Probably a few pro scouts, too. And maybe a few pro scouts. And I think I could read names at random off the Sharks roster

and interspersed them randomly with names from the Philadelphia Phillies bullpen. And you wouldn't be able to tell me whether or not it was a Sharks player or a Philly's reliever. Right? Like Noah Greger, Stephen Lawrence, right? Like this team has so many guys. Just like absolute guys. They rank so high on the guy meter. Are we doing the Sharks of the Blackhont?

No, I mean, Tom's lumping them together here. Yeah, but they both have that. They both have that. And I know, I know you feel the same way about the Blackhawks. They both have that sense to them. I just feel like at least the Blackhawks have, like, at least Anthony Cio is going to score a couple, like, big rush goals. Like, at least Max Domi is going to do some stuff that makes some headlines. Like, at least we're going to get to talk about Patrick Cain trade.

Like, the sharks are just kind of set for the air and they're bad. And Tim O'Mire and. Tomash hurdle aside, there's just not going to be a lot there. You know, people tune into the PDOCAS expecting analytics, deep dives, really, like, thoughtful process. And then Tom delivers with, I'm going to watch this one game and flip a coin based on who wins. Because it doesn't matter. They're both in the same tier.

They're both, they are the only two teams that I had in my, if there's no NBA on tier. Chicago and San Jose. Here's the only thing I'll say about the Blackhawks. They're top line right now at the moment is Patrick Kane, Andreas Athanasi, CU. and Max Domi. Yeah, that's fun. This team is going to do everything in its power to make sure that none of those players are still on their roster by March 4th.

Right. That's all you need to know about where the Chicago Blackhawks are at this season. And I'm actually morbidly curious to see what this lineup looks like on March 5th. Yeah. Okay, me too. I will say that. And honestly, it might be more interesting to watch because I like when young players I've never really watched play before.

They'll make mistakes, but at least I'm like, oh, I'm curious. Those guys aren't playing for the Hawks yet. Yeah. No, they won't. I don't know how they're going to. I assume they're probably going to take back bodies. They're going to have to. Just to fill a lineup out.

This entire season is basically a long con to convince Cain and Taves to waive their no-trade deals. Yeah, 100%. And so we're going to go through a year of hockey in which the most interesting thing about the Chicago Blackhawks is what happens away from the ice. Right? And so they rank low, but I think at least they have that drama. The sharks don't even have that. Like they've made their big trade. They can't move on.

They're not going to move on from hurdle. And I guess, like, if you really want to get into, will they qualify, Tim O'Meyer? Like, if that qualifies his drama for you, maybe the San Jose Sharks have some. No, no one's tuning into any of these games to figure any of these decisions out. No, exactly. That's why they bought them too. I had the Sharks 30th. And I'm proud of you for having them 32nd because I lingered on that and I was too much of a coward.

Really? I'll admit it. You know what? I'll admit it. I wanted to have them 30 second. and I was like, you know what, I can't. I'm going to have them 30 at that of respect to Meyer and Hurtle because I still enjoy what they do. Carlson, I like their jerseys.

I like the all-teal. Yeah, they look. At least initially, like, I like, like my eyes gravitate towards it because it's like, this is new. Between those two, those two teams and the, and the coyotes, that was kind of my tiebreaker as well. I like those new jerseys. Really? But the Sharks have scored six goals and four games.

Now they played two sets of back-to-back already, but six goals and four games. And you're right. Like, their entire roster is. who he played for. Yeah. Well, and they fix the lighting in the building, by the way, but the camera angle is still bad. Yeah. It's still bad to watch Sharks' home games relative to most of the other teams.

It's great if you're live tracking, though. Is that higher angle? Oh, okay. You can see the numbers. Fair enough. I've always disliked watching Sharks games on television. At least they fixed the lighting before they hosted the All-Star game three, four years ago. I don't remember if you, like, do you remember watching it and it looked like a screensaver every time the Sharks played a home game?

It was awful. Yeah, something I always looked off about that building. It was brutal. What was the lighting? And now that's fixed, so it's better, but the angle still is one of the worst. So we've talked about 32 and 30. Can we talk about 31? Well, 31 Arizona.

You had them 32 on your list. I had them 31. I had them 30. You had them 30. I think they could actually be higher than a few other teams, purely from the perspective of October 28, their home opener. How are you not watching that game? Oh, you have to be. You have to see what that looks like.

And what if the atmosphere is cool? 4,500 mad coyotes fans in Mullet Arena. I mean, 4,000 super drunk ASU students looking for a beer special. Honestly, all jokes aside, if you're going to be bad and lose a lot of games, at least that kind of like carnival act element of it, like, I want to see that. 100%. And there's enough, there's enough coyote's weirdness that I'm into it. They're playing their games at the 16th hole at the waste management.

Yeah, I mean, I definitely watch that. There's so much Nick Ritchie on this top of the floor. My favorite thing about this, no, my favorite, my favorite thing about this team is that they were so bad last year, and this year they've brought back the exact same top line. Clayton Keller, Travis Boyd, and Nick Schmaltz, running the exact same first line. I mean, that's not the problem with the team, though. No, there's many problems with the team, but I find that hilarious. Guys, they've given up 96 shots in two games. They were against the Bruins and the Penguins and the Penguins on the.

road but 96 shots and 12 goals against in two games like some of the totals you're going to see in in some of these contests are going to be i mean it's it's worth tuning in to see what the other team can do offensively against the coyotes which i'm interested in yeah the sharks are almost like competent enough defensively where i don't think there's going to be that many like chaotic blowouts like you watch that penn's game against the coyotes to start the season and the first five minutes i think the shots were like 14 to one or something right and like i kind of enjoy that just from like to see the other team highlighted almost as opposed to kind of being a slog where it's like a two one game between the hurricanes and the sharks like it was the other

night and nothing really happened i had the coyotes like sharpied in the bottom six before the season before the season started and uh the fact that they came back against boston yesterday is kind of encouraging yeah like there could be there could be some chaos here and i should also can i can i give you my corral the thrill story yeah absolutely so that's what this podcast is for Our boy Tyson Nash of Bolly Sports, Arizona, likes to call Carl Vemalka, Correll the Thrill. Yeah, that's right. And we were at a, I was at the Leafs Coyotes game last year. The memorable Leafs Coyotes game.

Yeah, we had some. And I think I texted you before the game saying this is going to be. We had some meetings there. It was, it was Coral Knight, but it was also Ryan DeZingle Night, as I recall. It was. It was Dim texting me before the game when he saw that Vamelka was starting. Correll the thrill. And then it was on TNT and he had a performance for the ages.

He stopped 49 to 50 shots. The coyotes were one of two teams that the least didn't be last year. That's right. The other being the Canucks. There we go. So I think there's enough morbid curiosity things about the coyotes. The environment, I like the jerseys. I have like weird soft spots for a bunch of guys on their roster.

Troy Stetcher being the most obvious, but also guys like Dyson Mayo. Like Dyson Mayo, I think, could be totally fine on some. teams, but he's there and he's hooped. What is more fun than a Josh Brown, Shane Gostas bear pair? Come on. That's super fun. A lot. You have a lot, you have a lot, you probably have a lot more of a sauce spot for Josh

Brown. Yeah, maybe, maybe. But I'm just saying, like, if you're going to have a shutdown guy and an offensive guy, at least make it the most irresponsible defensive guy possible in Gostas Bear and the biggest possible lumbering shutdown guy. No. No, he's not. Okay.

We'll talk about Yanni Hock and Paw later. Guys, we're doing the watchability rankings here in the Hockeypedo cast. We've got to keep it moving because we said we were going to limit the amount of time we spent on the bottom teams. Fair enough. And right now we're on pace to make this 10 part. They're more fun. They're more fun than this next team. The next team is the Philadelphia Flyers on our list.

Cam, you're at M. 26. Tom and I both at him 29 started the season with two spirited victories at home. My note here is, for the people with wrestling. brain. They're playing Becky Lynch's theme song for their goal song, which is awesome. That's cool. I don't know. I'm interested in from the perspective of

I think they have enough, as opposed to some of these other teams, they actually have enough competent NHL players where I think... They absolutely do not. No, I see what you're saying. Compared to the coyotes. At least they have Proverov and Sandheim. They do. Connect me.

Proverov is... I wish they had more people with the last name, Kate, but They started with one of them last year And they called up the second one You texted me frantically being like Am I missing something? There are two cases And both of the cases

Played Saturday night I love it They're on the team now So Tom they just beat the Canucks Yes they did I watched that game way more closely than anyone Yeah Do you have any flyers takes

That might have surprised you Or anything to add here On the flyer The only watchability thing I noticed And I'm curious to get Cam's take on this because I know he's watched as well and we haven't had this conversation yet. I thought they were doing some interesting stuff

four on four. Oh, I didn't. Really? In terms of the drops? I thought they attacked with a lot of speed at four on four and found a way to like do some interesting things against a more skilled team. That was the only thing I liked.

To be honest, I wasn't really paying too much attention. When it goes four on four, you fast forward. I thought that was interesting. But other than that, like, I was thinking about it a lot while watching them.

Guys like ProVrov, like I like ProVrov. I bet you I like ProVrov a lot more than Cam does and probably a lot more than you do? No, I'm a big pro-vro. Okay, good, yeah. He was awesome last night, but his skill set is not fun. Like, what I like about ProVrov... Yeah, what I like about ProVrov is that, like, he's an eliminator and he's subtle and he, you know,

slowly angles guys into the wall where they can't do stuff. Like, even their fun players are fun in a way that's not that fun, right? Like, Connectney, I think is super fun, but in a way that it's like, I think he'd be a great fit as a second liner on a good team, you know? Like, yeah. There's just no one that jumps off the page, and then they have a ton of guys. They have no game breakers. They have no game breakers, and they have a ton of guys who I've never heard of until I watched the game last night. Guys like Wade Allison, who I thought played great.

Wade Allison, he's not a good player. He played really well in that game. He was exceptional. And then there was one guy in particular who stood out for me in that Flyers game, and I was just watching it thinking, oh my God, this guy, Ole Lixil? That was his first NHL game. That was his first NHL game, and it was awful. I was just like, oh, my goodness.

Not to cast a spurt. Like, I'm sorry to his family or whatever, but it's just like... I'm sure they're listening to the hockey video guests here on the Sports Night Radio Network. It just, yeah, the flyers feel like they are held together by sticky tape, connecting some, like, good NHL players whose skills happen to be pretty dull to a bunch of guys who are absolutely just guys. Reasonable start to the season, I think that's a little unsustainable because it's all effort, and I don't know if they can sustain that effort through... Well, Tom, you had me on your show right before the season started.

We were previewing the first week of Canucks Hockey in terms of their schedule, who they were going to be playing. That's something we're going to be doing your show regularly this season. And we talked about the flyers, and we've kind of brought up the point of, I'm curious, this could go two ways to start the year, right? On the one hand, it could be like a galvanizing John Tortorella inspires the players to get the absolute most out of them. For sure.

Until, you know, talent wins over and it just can't handle anymore. Slash, they all get injured blocking shots. Or it just goes chaotically off the rails right away because he's like benching good players to prove a point about effort and stuff like that. Well, he can't do that because there are no good players for bench. And those that are, are like defensively responsible. Again, like Broverov and Keneckney, right? It'll be like his top line is Kevin Hayes, Travis Keneckney, and Scott Lodden.

And they're all. Kevin Hayes is a really fun to watch. So I'm really hoping he has a full healthy season. Yeah, he didn't look great. He looked like a guy still finding his legs. But he is super fun. You know, Scott Lotton's super fun too. I like Lotton, but yeah.

I like Farabee. I like Frost. Yeah. I thought Frost had a really good game and a bit of a chaotic game. I like Frost outside. out of what he did Saturday. Right, fair enough. I shouldn't say last night because when is this Monday?

Yeah. But the, anyway, I think the flyers suck. But Tortorella, you never want to face a Tortorella team early in the season. I felt like we saw a lot of that on Saturday afternoon in Philly. Let's keep moving. Okay. Next on our list, the Montreal Canadiens. Pass.

I mean, here, I was, was that the highest on them at 25? I had them 27th. So I was the highest on that. I really enjoy watching Coffee and Suzuki together. Yeah. Like, I will tune in just to see that. Me too. I think the forward group has, like, enough interest there for me. Obviously, the blue line is, like, incredibly young and they're going to make a ton of mistakes.

But, like, I think it's fine from, like, an entertainment perspective. The only Canadians I've seen this year is in their opening game against the Leafs. And I heard you, Shana talk about Coffield. He looked fantastic. He looks like everything that we hope he'd be. Yeah, he's a much different player than he was at the start of last season. And he was doing it all out there. There's just a few things.

Like, I was thinking about it. And I was like, there's just enough. First of all, I'm, like, completely out on the HABs being part of the Badaard sweeps. Like, I think they absolutely do not belong in a tier with the teams we talked about to open this. Well, I think they probably should. Oh, I don't. Like, from their aspirations this season, what they want to get out of this year? Tactically, like, or strategically, what should management be going for?

Probably that. I just think there's no chance they're going to be. Did you see that defense? I did. I did. But there's still, like, you watch those, the coyotes, and it's, you know, completely different thing than it is where it's like, oh, and now the Montreal fourth lines on, and it's Jake Evans and Mike Hoffman, and you're like, okay, those guys are like at least NHL players.

Anyway, the Habein certainly is. The Habs have just enough stuff that I like watching. Corey Schooneman. Well, the blue line's work in progress. But Mike Matheson's going to come back at some point, and then you're going to have a feature or a bug? Well, for winning or for watchability? Fair enough.

It's absolutely a feature for watchability. At the end of the day, he's a 6'3-3 guy who's a top 10 straight-line skater in hockey. I mean, he's defenseman Mikhail. Like, it's fun. One thing I would like to see a little bit more of is, well, it's very clear that Martin Hes-Lewi hasn't really caught on to Uri Slavkovsky yet, and he's going to look for something to do with him because right now, like, he played three shifts in the third period against Toronto. He's just, he's, Slavskovsky's in the lineup because Hughes wants Slavkovsky in the lineup. I don't think Stanley wants him.

I mean, Shane Wright played six minutes in the opener, and that has been healthy scratch the past two games. Yeah, Marco Rossi is getting like a shift every 10 minutes. Neil's Hoaglander in Vancouver. I don't know. Coaches don't know how to handle young players. No, but first overall picks, though, tend to, when they make the league, they make the league.

Yeah. With regards to just really quickly coming back to this, like, you know I'm the original Kirby Doc skeptic, but he's fun to watch, especially now that they've figured out that he's not a center. I think there's a real chance that he can level up and be like, you know, the poor man's version of like a Poolyarvi type,

which is the poor man's version of a Natchushkin type. Just like a big assertive guy on the forecheck. If that happens, they'll be fun to watch. Josh Anderson's one of the most unique players. He's like Ritary Lekidon Replacement. Right. Also, I want to say that Sean Monaghan looked annoyingly competent. Yeah, of course he did.

He's totally fine. And they're going to flip him probably at half retained. Anyway, they're going to get less for him than scale less than half. They have Brendan Gallagher fighting with people, just like chirping people, getting cross-checked in the face. And then eventually we're going to get to see Mike Matheson run PP1, and it's going to be fun. There's just enough stuff in Montreal. And I actually think San Luis is pretty decent.

They had a five-forward second unit because they didn't have a single defenseman other than Chris Widman that they could competently roll out as a guy to put on the point of powerful. A single defenseman except for Chris Widman. That's like, I know. So Chris Widman is there. Yeah. Guys, brutal. We're going to take a quick break here.

Okay. And this is how you know how I'm going to fire up. I'm a podcasting and broadcasting professional. This is a tease. Yeah. When we're back, we're going to talk about the New York Islanders. You're listening for the HockeyPedio cast on the Sportsnet Radio Network. Hockeyedio cast.

So let's keep, let's keep breezing here. We're at 27 on our watchability rankings. The New York Islanders, who I had 26th, Tom had 24th, Cam, you had him 27th. I had to have them higher than some of these other teams you mentioned because Matt Barzal, just as a singular talent, sucks you in and up. even when he's, like, kind of dancing around the offensive zone for 30 seconds with the puck and then, like, it leads to a point shot or nothing that constructive. It's still so fun to watch him do it that, from an entertainer perspective, that.

And I actually think when they're playing right, they're a good counter team and I enjoy that from my product. I'm curious to see under Lane Lambert. I know he was on the coaching staff before. It seems like they're going to be a bit more aggressive in terms of, like, kind of going for offense and potentially sacrificing a bit defensively. So I'm tuning in to see that, all that. Yeah, that's...

Matt Barzell had such a... such a great first two years. And then Barry Trots came in. He was really, like, reeled back in. He was handling the puck less. And it feels like, it feels like the reason why Trots was out was because there was a bit of a power struggle. Lou wanted the team to be a bit more offensive.

So I'd like to see Barzell break out. There's a couple quick things about the Islanders that I had that sort of elevated them into the tier of like they at least have a couple things I enjoy watching. In addition to Barzell doing Barzell stuff. Noah Dobson is so big and so fast that he gets the jersey flapping behind him when he skates with the puck through the neutral zone. Shades of Mike Madano. You know, like you have to be the right dimensions and the right amount of speed to get that effect.

He does. I love that. Ryan Pooleck, I could watch that guy shoot pucks all day. And then I think Adam Pellick might be one of the best defensive players in the league. And I really enjoy watching him play. He's just so smart. Also, they overuse Oliver Wallstrom on the power play if he's ever there. And, you know, pains of glass behind the NFL.

net are. Beware. Yeah, that's, that's, that's a, I'm docking them for that. I don't like the inefficient volume shooter on the power play. All right. 26, the blue jackets. We're all pretty in a new incidenter cam. You were highest 23, I'm 25, Tom 27. Here's what I'll say about the blue jackets. Last year defensively, at 515. They were 30 second and expected goals against, 30 second in shots against and 31st in goals against. I think they might be worse defensively this season. Yeah, they added good brands. And from, from a game setting perspective, I think there's going to be a lot of like really crooked numbers on the scoreboard in Blue Jackets games. And with Johnny Goodro there and now, and they have like some young offensive talent, I think they can score some themselves.

So I don't think it's going to be like good hockey. I think they're going to lose a lot. But I think it will be relative entertaining. They're not they're not the caliber of team that can come back when they're down to nothing regularly, though. You're not going to be looking at them as like. No, but if they're down for one, they can definitely score that second goal. Yeah. I was prepared before the season to have them, you know, closer to average, to be totally honest with you.

but then KJ didn't make the team and Lion A's out for three to four weeks. So, you know, once the Blue Jackets gain the courage to give me a Godreau, Kent Johnson, Patrick Lioney line, and Lioney returns the lineup, I'll probably start watching a lot more Columbus Blue Jackets, but until then. I also don't know. Whatever. Win's Alexander Texia. I'm a big fan.

I'm actually a big fan of Texian. Yeah, he's really good. I'm with you. I think he's out indefinitely for the full season. I would say that like two years from now, I could see this team being really high, though, because they've drafted so remarkably well with the help of the computer boys the last couple years. And super fun players too.

Like, Matechuk's going to be super fun. And so is Eurochick, to be totally honest with you. So, no, I agree with you. Yeah, once those guys replaced the Gavarkov and Peak. Yeah. I mean, guys. Good Branson's played 52 minutes at Vy 1-5. They're getting outshot 40 to 15.

Yeah. Well, so if you watch that video of the Jackets Management, it was when they signed Good Branson that they kind of opened. They reopened the possibility of, oh, we could bring his buddy Goodrow over from the flames. And by doing that, they had to get rid of Oliver Borgstrand. And I'm not sure whether I would have traded Oliver Bork Strand for Johnny Goddrow plus Eric and Branson. Well, especially once you factor in the contract.

Yeah. And we'll, I'm sure, get back into Bjork Strand when we get to the Cracken, which has to be soon. Who are next on our list at 20? It has to be. Look at that. Synergy, baby. This is why I love you, Sinema, Siamia. Classic.

All right. Crackin. Cam, you were. shockingly high on them. All over them. 18th. I had him 28th. And I was 23, so I was right in the middle.

And I love the offensive upgrades they've made. We've already seen the effects of Bjorks and Berkovsky in terms of like that shooting ability where they can just one-shot scores do something that they really didn't have any of last year. This team is not good. No, no. But you talk about, we talk about teams that are never out of a game when they're down two or three.

The Cracket are never. They're never in the game. No, they're never through. They're up by three goals. And you're white. And you're like, okay, well, what's, here's what I'll say. It's not, are they going to blow this lead? It's how long or, like, how long until they blow this lead?

If you're going to tune into a cracking game, though, you better catch the opening puck drop. I tweeted this yesterday. They played 85 NHL games. They've given up a goal on the first shot they faced in 12 of them. And I was looking, I think 11 others, they gave up a goal within the first five minutes. Oh, it's never a good sign when you give a good sign when you give up goals when the starting lineups are still being played on the crowd. The score.

The bug's not even on. You don't even know what time it is? I was counting. I think that's 10 or 12 seconds in the game. I don't know yet because the clock's on. Maddie Baneers, Michigan Wolverines, like, and your opponent scores. With the Cracken, having watched them a fair bit in the preseason, because I cover a team up in the Pacific Northwest, also having seen a little bit of them early, adding Baneers,

Burakowski, um, York Strand and then also getting Brandon Tanniv back. Yeah. Just like gives them a level of push and speed in the neutral zone that they were completely absent last year. So that's sort of why I was a little bit higher on them.

That defense still can't move the buck. And that's sort of the main problem. But yeah, gotta give a shout out to my guy Will Borgon who is like probably, he's in my like Mason Appleton tier of like just like guy I like a lot for no reason. So, so I just there's something in there, man. He's a good player. Okay, this is the time for this anecdote,

because we've actually done a good job here, breezing through a few teams. I think we've afforded ourselves a couple minutes of a filibustering. This summer, the three of us were hanging out at the beach. And I brought up the point of, I think it's okay to not have takes on every single player. I watch a depressing amount of hockey. Yeah.

I've seen everyone play. There's some guys, I can watch them 10 times. I don't know if they're good or bad. They're probably not good if I have no take on them at this point, but I'm sure in the right setting they can be fine. So sometimes I just defer and I just go, I don't know anything about this guy. Tom, I've yet to come across a player that you didn't have a strong take. That's why you're professional.

That's why you're on the show. And that's why you're talking up Will Borgon right now. Do you remember we started doing it? Cam was reading off all the guys that played 82 games. And it was like, yeah, I did end up having a take. Even if the take was just like, when did he move to center? Like, I at least had a take on that guy. But what was it?

Can I list it off 10 guys? And I'm like, honestly, like, none of these guys, I have nothing to say about him. And then he said Luke Cunning. And I'm like, okay, hold on. Yep. Nice day at Spanish banks. Yeah. Okay. Anything else on the Cracken? Or should we move on? No, let's move on.

I really like their jerseys. Just because we, you know, we mentioned that with the sharks. I should be fair. They're going to have a two-tone with the S is the primary, and I think it's going to be absolute fire once they do their reverse retro on bail. So, yeah, they've nailed the branding despite the fact that they've, you know, not built a good team that's easy to relate to. Yeah.

24. The Winnipeg Jets. who I had significantly, well, I had him 19, were being dragged down. Oh, Tom, you all signed a minute. Cam's dragging us down here with 29. That's ridiculous. Is this the Rick bonus effect? I hate this team.

I don't think that's unreasonable, by the way. It's just that they have enough fun stuff. The personnel itself, no, the personnel itself is, you can argue they don't get the most out of them, and at this point we shouldn't expect him to. This is Carolouille de Bois, for sure. Pierleteufois is the dirtiest player in the league. Cam, don't get the show canceled right now.

He gets no disrespect for just how dirty he is on just about every play. He will elbow you in the back just kind of casually throw in the board. He'll run the goalie a little bit. He'll keep his leg out a little bit to trip a guy. It sounds personal. It sounds a little personal. Maybe. He should have been suspended in the playoffs for that hit on Jake Muzzin.

And he scored a hat trick. But I hate the Jets. I have no, I don't like anything about them. That's not true. They have some young D coming up that I quite like. I don't think it's- No, their personnel, their personnel is, like, they should be in the top half. Based on the personnel they have, if you had a coach, an enterprising coach

who like brought in an innovative system that got the most out of these players, they should be significantly higher. Yeah. Got to give bonus a little bit of credit, Nikikilers top line. power play unit is five years overdue and he finally has done it. You're not allowed to say the line, got to give bonus credit on the PDOCs. I'm sorry. You got to you got to you really you really you really got to him. The Dallas stars are still catching strays because of him. Super fair.

With regards to, okay, one of my favorite like odd things to watch in the entire league is Mason Appleton. Well, no, that Mason Avelton too. No, it's Kyle Connor working without the puck to get open. Yeah. He is the best in the league at it. It is a ton of fun. Every time the Jets have the puck and the offensive end, I just watch Kyle Connor work.

And he's just, he, like, he breaks so much sweat, just trying to find and identify the open area of coverage. And so often he gets such a good shot out of it. It's just, he's a savant. That alone makes them above average, or at least close to average for me. He made a seamless transition from a net front power play player to a flank player. Yeah.

And he was just absolutely a lead. at both. You're right. He's an incredibly talented goal score. Yeah. And it's, but it's the, it's the work rate, like everyone sees the speed, everyone sees the shot. The loud skills are obvious. What makes Connor special is the way he works to find those soft

areas. He works harder at it and has a better feel for it than anyone else in the league. That alone makes the Jets special for me to watch. Like, I enjoy it just to watch Kyle Connor work without the puck. I also say this about the Jets is, I'm not as, I think that Blake Willer's Wheeler still has a little bit of game left.

He's fun, too. He's not complete. He's a playmaker, yeah, certainly. He's not, he's not, he's, like, there's, you know, there's rumors of his demise. I think he's fine. But it's, but it's, um, it's his, his demise is like, I would compare it to, uh, Jacob Voracek. You know where it's like, he's still going to have points?

He can still do some fun stuff offensively. It's just the two-way driving impact of his game is muted significantly. Yeah. Yeah. Well, on the counterpoint, especially if he's playing with Euler's full time at 5-15, who's like, on the short list of best puck transporters in the league. It's such a perfect combo for just like work hard to get open and this guy's going to get you the puck. Like that's sick.

And honestly, even guys like Adam Lowry, I like have a soft spot for. I like Adam Lowry's game overall. You don't have to have a take on everybody. I know. We just went over this. We just talked about this. What I'm picking up here is that this is a Jets team that seems to be flying under the radar. Flying under the radar.

Exactly. And especially Adam Lauer and Mason Appleton. Let's go. All right. I'm so upset by everything that's happening. Wait, Tim, do you see that Sacramento and Ireland It was on this team too? Absolutely.

Yeah, that's an old joke. No, they, the Jets, I mean, they're blue-line. Like, they have good play. Like, I don't know. This team should be so much higher. So I'm with Cam in the sense that I hate them because it's so frustrating that they're not higher. And they're not going to be higher this year.

I hate them for different reasons than you do. I just hate this team. I'm never going to watch them because of that. 23rd hour list, the Ottawa Senators. I had them lowest, right? I had them 28. Yeah. So I think they could be fun.

I just don't think they're fun yet. The thing that I like about the Ottawa Senators is that I love me some Brady Kachuk. Brady Kachukh is like a character, a competitor, a player. There's a ton that I like about how Brady Kachukh plays. But aside from that, I, you know, and maybe this is my personal bias too, because I just see so much Kinnukes in them. This Senators team to me feels like a late Benning-era Canucks team, where it's like their fans really want to raise a banner for winning the off-season.

but at the end of the day they have Travis Hamanick in the top four. And Tyler Mott. Yeah, and Tyler Mott killing penalties, which, by the way, that actually ups their watchability rankings. But, like, they're just, they're not going to be good. They're not going to be able to move the puck well enough. These offensive players are not going to be fed well enough. Thomas Shabbat's not going to get enough rest. Like, there's just going to be so much about this team that falls short of expectations

and is ultimately very frustrating. And so I couldn't rank them high. I had them ranked in the top half. and in defense of the Ottawa senators, they do a lot of silly aggressive things. They don't have the personnel to be as aggressive on the penalty kill as they are. And yet they do. Now, they've lost Connor Brown,

or they traded Connor Brown, so he was one of their best. But I also see three lines where they have at least a good offensive duo and saw them Saturday night against the Leafs, but their top two lines were moving the puck very well. Yeah, they played one. Once they get into the offensive zone, they start moving the puck, they have enough talent to do interesting things. And as with the Kraken, they're bad enough defensively that if they're up by three goals in the first period, that lead is not being held.

Yeah. Yeah. I had them higher on them 22nd. I think he had them. I think that they're going to be in a fair share of five, four, six, four games this year. Yeah. I just think that they are going to be a massive disappointment on the whole. And there was nothing more.

They're not good. But that's not what I'm breaking. But I also have to factor in, like, I always loved Senators' Twitter, right? So, like, part of the watching game experience is, like, what does my Twitter feed look like when their games are on? But now Senators fans are optimistic for the first time in a decade, and I hadn't realized how annoying they all were. So I'm also docking them for that. Like, Senators fans actually think this team's going to be decent and they're not, and that adds sort of element for me. When they go on their losing streak, you're just going to be the sickos guy.

Oh, yeah, 100%. That's exactly right. I can't wait for the senators to take an entertaining path to 78 points. How dare people have fun? I load this team. 22nd on our list of National Predators, Cam. You were lowest 25. Tom and I both had him at 20.

I think there's enough here in terms of fun players, especially with the puck, that I really enjoy watching. When we're talking about game environments, there are large stretches of Predators games where like not much happens. Yep. And from a watchability perspective, that drags them down when they're, when they're humming, what they're at their best, they're really fun to watch. But unfortunately, that never seems to like extend over a full 60 minutes of play. So I think they're one of those teams where you can tune in and out, basically,

and kind of like get the full experience without necessarily having to sit through a full game. I'm going to remind myself like 10 times this year that Nino Nider Nideriderider plays there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, it's, you just kind of, you just kind of tune them out because it's so easy to tune them out. Because, as you say, they just go through these long stretches of nothing.

It's, it's very mad. Like, I, John Hines, I think, is a very uneventful game style. I think they're going to be, I think they're going to be pretty good, though. Like, not in terms of, like, competing for a Stanley Cup, but, like, they're not going to be a bad team. No. They basically, they did, actually have a pretty good offseason, I think, in terms of they, like, Nino was great. They added Eno and McDonough without necessarily sacrificing anything from the roster.

It was just worthwhile. And I think, I think, sorry, McDonough and Eckholm could be a lot of fun, even though there's not a ton of push from that pair. Obviously, that pair would have been unreal five years ago. Now, though, I still think it's going to be fun because they're both so smart defensively and so tough. At the end of the day, it's really hard for me to not have a team with Philip Forsberg on it in the top half. but there's just a couple things that Nashville does on a team level, over-reliance on point shots on the power play that I find like take away from my enjoyment.

Like if I'm watching them, I'm going to get frustrated, watching some of the things they do. Another one is, you know, when all their forwards are standing at the blue line waiting for Roman Yose to enter the zone. Like if there's just certain elements, phases of the game that always happen when I'm watching the predators, that I find myself being like, why? Why do you do it that way? You've compared Roman Josie to an inefficient shooting guard. Yeah, he's a hero ball shooting guard. Yeah. Yeah, and it just takes away from my enjoyment.

I see lots of opportunity cost when I watch the National Predators, and that's not fun for anyone. Yeah, well, it came up a lot last year when everyone was trying to make the point of how valuable he was. It was like, look how much he's doing. And it's like, yeah, that's kind of the point. That's the problem here, right? Like not that they had such better alternatives, but like, I think we'd all agree that when you're trying to map out how you want your team to operate offensively, you typically don't.

Trying to get your start. Just funneling everything through a defense. Trying to get your star defenseman 100 points. Seems like a really bad way to go back. Especially when you have, like, actual dynamic playmakers. Like even like, even Granland, like the resurgence do Shane Ed last year. Like they have players who can do really cool stuff with the puck in the offensive zone. Those should be the guys who always have the puck, not any defenseman as good.

as dynamic as Romaniosia. Also, shout out to Short King, Yusay Soros. At some point... Super fun. At some point over the last 15 years, hockey people decided that goalies had to be between 6-2 and 6-5, and Saros is... Saros being good at 5-11 is hopefully going to change a little bit of that. I think that the reason why there's no good goalies in Canadian hockey right now

is because we select for goalies just based on size. As opposed to athleticism. Yeah, and Zaros is super fun to watch. Him and Forsberg were a big reason, like sort of did a big thing in buttressing where this team was for me in my rankings. Yeah, I think, I think Philip Forsberg is like one of, if not the best power forwards in the game, but no one thinks of him as such because he's like not that big of a Swedish player.

But he's like, he's so, like when he puts his head down and his shoulder down, he drives to the net, like he's, you're not getting the puck from him. Yeah. And that's really cool. cool to watch. Philip Povich. That's right. All right. Number 21 here in our list of Dallas Stars, who I should say, I had them 15th. Wow. Play the hints.

You add them 26, Tom. That's why they're this low on our list. Well, I just need to see it. I need to see proof of concept. We talked about it a little bit in part one, but I think there's a lot of possibility for them to level up very quickly, and I sort of put them in a tier that's like, I don't think they're fun yet,

but there's some upside there. Columbus was in that tier two, so was Ottawa. So, you know, I see a path towards them being extremely fun because Rope Hints is incredible. Robertson is incredible. Hayskinin is incredible. I even have time for things like

I like watching Esselandell shoot. Like there's like a ton of stuff that the sharks or the story, the stars do that I find super fun. But I just, I need to see them put it all together absent a bonus defensive system. I've watched this team play too many games just suffocating their

opponents slowly. If they, if they come out and play hockey the way they have the first two games, I could easily see them being in the top path in my midseason. Let me read your quote. Rupa Hintz after the game last night or on Saturday night. When he was asked if the blue line, if the decisions the team is making at the offensive blue line feel different this year, is what Rupa Hintz said. Yeah, we don't dump it in every time now. Last year we dumped it a lot. I think it's going to create more offense for us when we handle the fucking create some things. Shots fired. Last year we dumped it a lot. Turns out, turns out also Rupa

Hins agrees that we should not be quote unquote giving it to Rick bonus. Rupert Hins hates the Jets. Honestly, Cam, we talked about this in the Miro discussion on players we're excited to watch this year. This is exactly what we want to see. This team has enough skating talent to actually push the pace and attack off the rush, especially when its best players are out there. And Miro scored like a four-on-four goal against the Predators where he was leading the rush.

He passed it off, drove to the net, got it back. That's exactly what I want to see. So I actually do believe that we should already bump them up higher because if Rick Bonas was still the coach based on what they did the past few years, 26 is the good ranking. I think 15th potential higher for even more is in play. I just need to see it. I need to see it.

I'm sorry, that's my priors are too strong here. And one last thing is. Talk about Yanni Hawk and Pa. Yeah, I love Hawkenpa. I'm sorry, and I believe it's Hawk and Pay if we're going to be, just like it's Haskin and not Hesskinin. Anyway, with, it's a finish thing. Okay. With regards to

DeBoard. DeBoers tended to coach aggressively, like defensively, but aggressively. So look, I admit that I may be a little bit low on the ranking here. I just, I need to see it because I've got this.

Like, remember, I lived in the bubble, right, right, for like, bubble adjacent in Edmonton for two months. So I watched them play 24 games, just playing, you know, Possum. You know, they've got, they've got some goodwill to build up with me first. Well, in the NFL, you have your offensive coaches and your defensive coaches and you kind of alternate between them.

And I think that in hockey, you kind of have your detailed coaches and your vibes coaches. Bonas is a detail coach. DeBoer is a vibes coach. But DeBoar is detailed. No, DeBoar is very detailed. DeBoar is like annoyingly detailed. Players tune him out. The Golden Knights players were pretty upset when he was there because they had a lot of tape study after games.

I think he's a great. I think he's a great. Well, I don't think they were very good. Well, they were working hard. I don't know. Regardless of what your mileage and the results, I think he's definitely, maybe I guess you could argue, like, overly detailed in terms of micromanaging, if anything. Okay. Well, I'm excited.

So there you go. All right, 20 on our list, the Washington Capitals, who I had them relatively low on my list. Adam 21st. You guys each had them 18, 19. We had them roughly equal. Yeah, but I mean, like, I just couldn't, I couldn't have them any higher because, like, I know exactly what I'm going to get. You've seen this film before? Which is fine.

It's the Ovechkin goals Jays. And they've basically set this organization up to try and get Alex Ovechkin to his 8905th goal. I think that's a very inspired thing to do as a franchise. They won their cup, whatever, do something that no team has ever done. Yeah. Yeah. And it's going to have like legs in terms of legacy branding for them for 25 years. I mean, you're this deep end.

You might as well see it through. End of the day. End of the day. I think they have three decent lines that play pretty. Like I thought their game against the Leafs. They played pretty well. I have some time for the way guys like Orlov and Jensen and Farivari, like control play. You know, I think they'll be, I think they'll be good.

And I think they'll be fun to watch. I have a lot of time for their checking line, too. I don't really say that about a lot of checking lines, but I've always been a big Nick Dowd guy. Yeah, Nick Dowd, Garnett Hathaway. They're not watchable, but they're fine. I talked about this a little bit with Dimitri on the show last week, which was like how everyone over time becomes a one three one cynical defensive team like you start as the high flying caps and you become that you start as the high flying Tampa Bay Lightning and you become that

and then an HL scout reach out to me and suggest that the one three one should be called the crab because over a long enough period of time everyone evolves into it and so yeah that's who the capitals are at this point you know trap it up trap it up geto of etchkin his goals if you have to be inefficient on the power play to do it so be it but yeah I mean there's enough there that I like. Yeah. So that's why I had the mate team. All right.

We're going to put a pin in our list here and then we're going to pick back up on part two. Yeah, we got to 20. That's not bad. It was good. I was hoping for a bit more, but, you know, we had to talk a lot about the about Will Borgon and, you know, key players throughout the show. I think it was the Jets hatred that slowed us up.

It really was. Well, you know what? I did say at the start. My hope was to get Cam fired up and. You did it, yeah. And we got there. Pierre-Luc de Blois. I hate the Jets.

That's going to be it for the watcher-de-lil rankings here on the HockeyPed-O cast. We're going to be back with part two tomorrow. So keep listening on the Sports Day Radio Network.