The Hockey PDOcast - The Avs Since the Trade Deadline, and Potential Round 1 Central Division Matchups

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by AJ Haefele to breakdown Colorado's play since the trade deadline, the impact of their improved offensive depth, Cale Makar reaching 30 goals for the year, and potential round 1 Central Division matchups against either the Stars or the Jets. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name's Dmitra Filipovich and joining me as my good buddy, AJ, Heyfully, AJ. What's going on? How's it going well? It's always a blast to have you on. It's been a while since we've chatted. I believe the last time we had you on was when we were at peak Marty Natchez Mania. It was about 10 games or so into his Aves tenure. We spent a full episode breaking down all the impacts that he had had on the top line, on the power play. We're going to take us sort of a bigger picture view of the Aves this time and the way they've been playing, especially since the trade deadline, right? And I'd argue that, you know, we generally tend to look at heading into the postseason the final 20, 25 games

as a good barometer of how well teams are playing. I'd argue that for this Aves team specifically, the trade deadline marks such a fair point of delineation for evaluating them because they went out and obviously added Brock Nelson, Charlie Coyle to go along with the Lindgren trade previously and totally revamping their goalie position. And it kind of put that all together, really put the finishing touches on this full roster makeover they've underwent this year, right?

They've used 47 different skaters or 47 different players, 41 skaters, six goalies. It's been a year of turnover, a year of change. And this version of the abs that we've seen since March 7th is an entirely different one. They've gotten, what, 10, 2, and 2 in that time. And so I wanted to break down what we're seeing from them during this stretch and kind of comparing and contrasting, I guess, this version compared to the one we'd seen previously in the year. Yeah, I think the number one thing that we look at is that their lineup balance is better. you know, you, given, given the prices that they paid for Nelson Coyle and Lindgren, you know, their balance better be better, right?

Like, it needed to be, they couldn't go out and continue to be the same top heavy group, just given how much they invested in this team. So the returns there have been exactly what they've been hoping for because, you know, Nathan, Nathan McKinnon has been, every time I say pedestrian, it feels like a slight because how many guys could put up a stat line like he has since the trade deadline. And you would think, wow, this is going wonderfully. But relative to his own peak, McKinnon has just been like fine. There's a handful of games where it doesn't have any points. A bunch of games where it only has one point. So you're talking about the abs are, as you mentioned, 10-2 and 2.

since the deadline and Nathan McKinnon has not been the number one like overwhelming driving force in that success. I would argue neither is Kail McCar, although Kail Makar has also been great. But

just the balance down the lineup, it took a couple of games, but Brock Nelson's been really good as an a half, everything that they wanted from him. I mean last night in Columbus, second night of a back-to-back, he drives a line that is one of their best lines at 5 v5.

It's their most stable line at 5B5 beginning to end. And he's playing next to Jimmy V.C. and Ross Colton because of the injuries to Drew Ann and Nettches in Chicago the night before. And Brock Nelson scores a goal. You know, it's, it's Nelson, Nelson has been everything that they were hoping to get. And just that has unlocked their lineup. The addition of coil has been solid. That third line offensively has, I can't believe I'm going to say this with a straight face,

but the offense has mostly been driven by YOL Kivirontah, although Ross Colton has been a big assist guy over the last month. But Coyle finally got on the board last night in Columbus, had a three point night, but going through their lineup, you see it has gotten so much better, so much deeper. and taking Parker Kelly off the fourth line center and making him a wing now with Jack Doreas, that fourth line has turned that fourth line into a major weapon for the abs. They have used that fourth line to match up

against top lines of other teams on a consistent basis. Bedner has done at home and on the road. He's been comfortable with it. And that line is producing, not just offensively, but they're shutting them down. They're handling their business. and it's got something like a 66% expected goals at 5V5 as a trio, you know, and for a fourth line, are you kidding?

Like, great, now you have a shutdown line. So you're just talking about the balance on offense for Colorado has been so much better. And Ryan Lindgren defensively has, it started to get a little iffy, I think, over the last week. but the first 10, 11, 12 games maybe, it was really, it was rock solid for Lindgren and we're starting to see some cracks show there, but he's also been elevated a bit because the injuries, you know, no Sam Gerard, no Josh Manson.

So he's having to elevate in the lineup and play a role that maybe you don't love him playing. So that's, you know, but top to bottom, I feel like, this lineup is so much more complete. The results bear that out, any pick of metric that you want to get that since the trade deadline

and you'll just see this is a scary team right now. Yeah, to your point on McKinnon, when you're evaluating his player judging him, you're not comparing it to the rest of the league or regular players. You're comparing it to peak Nathan McKinnon. I was watching it. What was our last home game?

It was the one or last weekend against the blues end at the start of the game they do like the player props for the game and it was like Nathan McKinnon to record a point was like minus 500 which is like an 85% implied probability which is just absurd and I think he did hit it so it's like yeah

if he's at home he's going to record a point and these are the benchmarks that we judge him on but to your point in the 14 games since the deadline I've got it at 515 goal creation line one has created 10 goals line two's created nine goals

line three has created eight goals and line four has created five goals and that's a type of distribution that we've been talking about for years they've been so dearly craving for what three years now since their championship season and they finally have it now and we've seen some mixing and matching between the top six right splitting natures up putting in with nelson for a while there we without uh natius and drew and we saw a couple guys step in and play higher up the lineup but it's been a constant throughout and that's the biggest sort of selling point for me here for everything we talked about for months on end about how it's like it's great that you have McKinnon

and Ranton and McCar but at some point especially when you get into a playoff setting against a team like the stars that has three or four scoring lines or further on in the playoffs wherever you're going to play the burden on those guys is so immense and it's unfair to expect them as a team to be able to keep up with these other contenders and that's not really the case

anymore and it just created this entirely different landscape I think for them and opened a lot of doors and you're sort of seeing that with the way all of these forward lines are playing throughout. Yeah, it's become a pickier poison kind of situation especially with the utilization of the Drury fourth line going head to head against top

lines. They like what how do you match up against them? Because obviously this is with the caveat of when healthy we don't know what the prognosis is for Nettches and Druin right

now, but when healthy, which line do you feel comfortable throwing your guys out there against? Because when Colorado's at home, they're going to put Drury against the top line, and then Nathan McKinnon's going to get opportunities,

many opportunities, against other lines for the opposing teams. How many teams are deep enough to handle that kind of assignment? We are talking about the best center in the world right now, going against second, third, fourth lines, especially because the abs throw out McKinnon

with Taves and McCar as often as they do. You just create this little Globetrotter experience that happens 90 seconds at a time through several segments during a game. It's just opposing teams have to kind of white-knuckle those shifts and get through it and then try to get, try to do all of their scoring elsewhere. As you mentioned, Nelson's been predictably awesome and has given them some scoring punch.

And it makes sense if you watch them play on the Islanders, just putting them into this environment, what that would look like. I think for me, though, the revelation has been Charlie Coyle. And I know you talked about how he scored his first goal finally on Thursday in Columbus, but you look at the 5-15 metrics with him and Colton and the way that third line, quote, unquote, is played. being up 8 to 3 at 515, nearly 60% expected goals and high danger chances. And that to me has been huge here as well because I was high on the deal, especially for the purposes of the rest of the season,

just because as you and I talked about previously, the fit with Casey Middle Statt was sort of sticking out like a sore thrum. It was an elephant in the room of his inability to play at the pace. They wanted to. And then if you're going to play them with less skilled guys further down the lineup, you're not really tapping into whatever potential skill or theoretical upside. has. And so it was just such an awkward fit. Now you bring in Coil a very sort of specific catered role to what he can probably do at this point of his career. Yet it's exceeded my expectations

because we didn't really see this version of him for large stretches this season in Boston. And maybe it's another case or the latest example of, you know, team environments impacting an individual's look and how when you're playing on a bad team like the Bruins are this year, it's probably not representative of what a player is capable of. But he's just look entirely different to me physically than he had looked in my viewings upon watching Bruins games earlier this year. Yeah, and I think, you know, the team environment conversation is one that we, every trade deadline, we're like, oh, this guy wasn't very good. You know, again, I'll say the same thing might very well be true of Ryan Lindgren, who was,

I did a lot of conversation. I had a lot of conversations with people about that deal. And the team environment was one that kept popping up with respect to that. But with coil, I think it. just helps that they just, hey, just go, just go be who you are. We don't need you to score a bunch of points. And he really hasn't. His wingers have done the majority of the, the, the, the, the, the, scoring there with Kivirata and Ross Colton. He's just sort of been a conduit for good hockey. It hasn't, it hasn't, it hasn't, it hasn't been the driver of it. But he hasn't been, you know, it's not a

donut line. It's not, it's, it's not a line missing that guy in the middle. It's not, It's a really well-rounded group that now just feels like it's capable of doing its job on a night-to-night basis. And, you know, when I, just because this is the person that I am, I look at the cost of the deal, I look at how much money he makes. All of those, I think, are bad values. When I look at the fit and the results that they're getting out of it, no complaints. Charlie Coyle has been a great fit. and then in the really specific niche aspects of the game

you know oh he gives he gives the abs a right-handed face-off guy for penalty kills how many how many times does that apply during a game you know you're talking maybe five like he maybe takes five

penalty kill face-offs in a game maybe but going from you're guaranteed to lose that to now you can win it and you can kill an extra 20 seconds great it's been very helpful all the little things that he does have has boosted Colorado's profile just enough. You know, it's it's min-maxing at its finest. They didn't go out and get a guy that's changing the entire complexion of their lineup.

He's just solidifying it from the bottom up. And that's so much of the value that he has provided. Yeah, as we mentioned, they're 10, 2 and 2 since the deadline. They're also 14 2-2 in their last 18 games, stretching even beyond that. Now, what's hilarious about that is that in that time, going 14, 2 and 2, they've gained just two points on the Dallas stars in that time because the stars themselves have gone to 13, 3, and 2. And yet neither of them have even been the best team in the central

because the blues have gone to 16, 2, and 1, just for some perspective there. And we'll talk more about the stars and a potential round 1 matchup later on in today's show. But do you want to put a bow on the forward group before we move on to the defenseman and talk a little bit about sort of our anticipation or just general expectations for how this Gabe Landisog thing is going to play out because I've been on record being quite skeptical or dubious, I guess in the past,

especially last year around this time where it was like, oh, well, you know, we're just expecting him to come back in and play and be an impact player and given the injury, given the time off, given the fact that he's now 32 and it's going to be, what, 34 months off if he makes it back for the start? the postseason between this and the last time we saw in play, I still kind of need to see it to believe it, but it does feel like, and I know that you're probably as qualified to talk about this as anyone, because you've been working the Landisog beat for the past couple years, and I know you're sort of not only reading the T leaves, but having conversations with

people about it that probably know more behind the scenes. It does feel like the tenor has changed a little bit here recently, right? Not only in the clips we've seen of the practices and his involvement in them, but also that recent quote you saw from Eric Johnson. talking about it being more of a matter of when than if. And it just general, instead of couching everything with these asterisks and kind of nebulous up in the air stuff, it feels like we're going to finally at least reach some sort of resolution here over the next couple weeks. Yeah. I mean, I think, I just think that we're coming to a head here where this is the most serious it's ever been for Landiscag.

And, you know, to me, I think it's pretty simple that he's going to play. I don't know how much he's going to play. I don't know where he's going to play. And I don't know how many games he's going to play because it could very well be. Well, he tried it out and it did not go very well. So this is the end of the road. He could come back and he could just decide,

yeah, I'm just going to keep going. And now, you know, my career has resumed. It could be that. I don't know what happens next, but I feel pretty confident that he's going to play. It's just too much work. it's he needs it the team the team is open to it and I just don't I just think it would be roster malpractice to go into next season to push this off one more off season and say well we

don't really know so I they need everybody everybody involved in the situation needs an answer and so I think they're going to get one yeah I don't even really know what my reasonable expectations or the role would be I do think that if he's able to come back and play in any capacity though. The I'm not willing to discount the added benefit of the stuff that's tougher for us to quantify, which is sort of just like that emotional element and the uplift as well, right, especially for an organization that has not only been having this hang over them for the past two years, but also the last post two seasons dealing with Nchuschen's abrupt absences and sort

of the impact that's had not only on the ice but off the ice for them to have it go the other way where all of a sudden you're getting this massive return of someone who's obviously so integral and important to the organization is a huge thing that is trickier for us to put a value to in terms of numbers, but is undoubtedly there. It absolutely is. I think it's

a really big part of the story. You look at, look, Nathan McKinnon and Kiel McCart, those guys are really great at what they do, but Gabe Landiscag is like the quintessential captain. He's the epitome of everything that you want leading your team, the guy wearing the sea. I don't, especially in McKinnon's case,

like I just don't think he wants that. I don't think he's that guy. Not to say that he's not a leader in his own right. I just don't think he wants to be at the front of that pack, right? And Landiscag was just born for that. He's just that person. He's wired that way. So I think that that helps them.

I think it helps them knowing that, you know, especially some of these guys that have been with him for the last couple years, all the guys at the top of Colorado's roster, seeing the work that he's put in, you know, and then for him to go for it like this, I think that that's huge. And then,

yeah, he's going to help their lineup somewhere. I don't know, I don't know where, because, again, without knowing Duran and Nettches, like what their status is,

I don't know where in the lineup he fits. If those guys are both healthy, I think it's a fair expectation that he plays probably on the third line. next to Charlie Coil and Ross Colden, you know, and put him on a top power play unit. You know, yeah, I think that he could do that. Me personally, I have been saying, hey, my expectations are that they give him a more limited role, especially early on. You get through, if you win round one and you get through five, six, seven games, whatever it's going to be. And he gets more and more comfortable.

He's up to speed and he's looking like closer to the old Landisg. then you could start to build his role if you want to. If you don't feel like you need to, then keep him there. But I honestly don't think there are very many people out there who are expecting him to just drop in and be, oh, well, this is the Gabe Landiskeg who is a point per game player in their cup run in 2022. It's not fair. I don't think many people are expecting it. It's going to be an extreme challenge for him to, oh, he hasn't played in three seasons,

and now he's dropping into what could be like the death match of their run in round one against Dallas. Like it's kind of a hellscape for him. But the other side of that is that he has to ramp it up. He has to get it going immediately. There's no time for him to tinker and to mess around. I will say we talk about the intangibles of it. Game three, first game of first game of. the series back in Denver when

Gabe Landisog takes that first shift. If the Avalanche crowd does not give him a standing ovation for the entire 45 seconds or whatever of that shift, I'm going to be really disappointed in them. So I hope that they do that. I hope that they give him a ton of love. But the energy

in that building is going to be it might be overwhelming. It might be one of those too amped up to play kind of things. But with Landiscag I just think that The player probably won't be as good as he was the last time that we saw him. It's unfair to expect that.

But the emotional impact, your captain coming back, he's a huge part of their room. He's a huge part of their emotional and mental makeup. Even if he's just, I guess, a shell of his former self, that part of it is going to make them that much better. Yeah, I think just the presence and what it represents is more than half the battle there. I did a show on Tuesday, and at the time it was right after the game against the flames, McCarr scored a beautiful goal. I had this whole segment about talking about the likelihood of him hitting 30 goals this year. Right.

And at the time, it was like, all right, well, he's got 28. He needs two more in the final seven games. It's very doable. It's within reach. And then, of course, in the meantime, he scores in back-to-back games to get there and remove any sort of of drama or lingering question about it. Just to reinforce this and what a what a remarkable feat it is, I was born on November 8th, 1991.

Since I've been alive, the full list of defensemen to hit 30 goals in a season is Kevin Hatcher's 34 in 92, 93, and Mike Green's 31 in 2008, 2009. Now, the Mike Green one remarkably looking back at it happened in 68 games played, which is so obscene. The Kevin Hatcher one, it's like, He had to hit 24 two years prior, and that was the only other time he had even hit 20 in his career. And you look at that season that he got the 34, the caps had two other defensemen that hit 25 and 28, or 25 and 18 goals themselves. It was just a bizarre season.

But Makara hitting 30 and 77 here is quite an accomplishment. And yeah, I don't know. I think the next milestone, interestingly enough, we'll see if he gets there. It's a pretty lofty goal. But he has 90 points. He needs 10 in his final five games to hit 100. in that same time since the 1990 season, basically, we've seen Brian Leach get to 102.

We saw Carlson a couple years ago on that Shark's team get to 101, and those are the only two other instances. So he could become the third guy similar to what he just did with goals since the 1990 season to essentially get to this rarefied air. So I think that would be the next sort of checkmark that he could potentially hit in this historic season. But yeah, it's been really fun to watch. And of course, he just removed any drama by just scoring and back-to-back games

and getting there without sort of having this linger on. Yeah, I mean, classic Kail McCar, right? Like, he's like, I've got a job to do. I'm just going to go out and I'm going to go out and do it, not making a spectacle of it and he doesn't want to talk about it and he doesn't take any credit for it and it's not interested in any praise, none of that. He's just like, I'm just going to go, great.

Did those goals help us win games? Cool. So I don't know. I wrote a whole piece on Kiel McCar last night and, you know, for my money, I think him going head to head against Zach Werencki last night and he has a three point night and Zach Wrenski kind of gets beat up and his team gets punched in the face a little bit. You know.

Well, did the team get punched in the face or did Elvis Mursleikins get punched in the face? Yeah, I mean, Merslick wasn't any good and betrayed a lot. I mean, he gave up what three high danger goals last night? Like it's, Mers Likens was awful last, but Columbus needed that. Columbus needed it in every way imaginable. They were desperate. They had all the advantages. The abs played the night before.

The abs didn't get to travel. They flew in. They didn't get to Columbus until noon. And then turned around and play the game at, what, 7.30? Columbus had all the, the abs are missing, Duran and Nettches. Columbus had all the inherited advantages. And then Colorado's big guns just went out and took care of business. And yes, it was very Elvis Merslicans aided.

but that's for for my money macar I think he should have just put that to me that looked like the rubber stamp on a Norris trophy win but I really don't want I get really tired of these debates because genuinely I don't really care who wins these things if McCar wins great if he doesn't fine you know Quinn Hughes is

spectacular I love watching him play he's unreal you get into any of the numbers Quinn Hughes is amazing Zach Wrenski has kind of been in every he's done everything for Columbus this season

whichever pick your poison whichever guy that you you like for the award your mileage may vary on that and it's whatever for me I'd vote from a car but clearly I'm

I would be biased in that just watch you have to worry about it I think it's going to happen I yeah it's it's on this note I in talking about McCar hitting 30 goals our pal Eric Parnas former friend of the podcast now has been working with the abs for many years I'm sure he won't mind me saying this he he reached out and he's such a company man he's like everyone's talking about kale McCar and his pursuit of 30 goals why is no one talking about fellow aves player jacob McDonald and his push for 30 goals in the a hl for the abs organization

so I wanted to to shout him out as well I believe he's at 29 right now I had Kevin Woodley on earlier this week, and we had a mailback question in it talking about, we're asking sort of about rush shots and how we all agree that they're just inherently the most dangerous type of look you can create. And whether there's some element within them, the teams can try to recreate in-zone settings, especially come the postseason when it's tougher to get out in transition and whether you can sort of make it more difficult for goalies by replicating that in these offensive zone sequences. and he made the point of how we're already seeing that on the power play.

And you can even see it at 5-1-5 with the way this team operates with their top five players and just go through McCar's goals and how many of them are examples of that in sort of recreating that downhill element in particular, right? Where McKinnon attracts attention, especially kind of on the peripheries, whether he's high up in the zone or along the wall, and it creates this open space in the middle of the ice. And McCar gets the puck and skates downhill and rips a shot. and he's basically generating these rush shots that aren't qualifying as such

because they've been cycling the puck for 40 seconds, but they functionally are the exact same thing. And so that's a great example of that. And I wanted to shout out that out as well, because I think that's a massive sort of piece of the secret sauce in terms of how they create their offense. Yeah, look at the goal that McCar scored in Chicago, where McKinnon draws all the attention below the goal line.

And I know the Blackhawks are awful defensively. so it's no surprise that they just let Kail McCar hang out by himself. But that's what happens. He sneaks in back door, McKinnon hits him, and McCar has all day to shoot it. It's god-awful defense, and I don't know how you let Kail McCar do that to you. But, you know, what are you going to do?

Not cover Nathan McKinnon. So, yeah, those, it's a great point, and those guys are the best at that. And watching McCar, manipulate space in the offensive zone has really been I mean it's a joy

the way that he plays the game is so unlike anybody else and you add in the finishing ability you know there's there's no denying I think it would be extremely difficult to make an argument that he's not the best goal scoring

defenseman of this generation he has a 28 goal season under his belt now He's got a 30-goal season. The guy can just score. Part of that is because he plays alongside Nathan McKinnon as much, but also he's just beaten goaltenders. He's elite at this.

Well, don't diminish the accomplishment of scoring on the Blackhawks. We all know that this Aves team, the biggest weakness of theirs, is trying to hang with the mighty Chicago Blackhawks, and their biggest strength is just effortlessly shrugging off the second legs of back-to-backs, as they've done, not only this year, but in the past as well, truly bizarre team and trend that I don't think means anything, but it's still fun to look at nonetheless. All right.

AJ, let's take our break here. And then we come back. We'll jump right back into it and pick up the conversation. 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 Peeley. AJ, we've done 28 minutes so far. And I feel like all of it has been sort of preamble for what I actually want to talk about with you.

And we spoke about Kail McCarr before the break. Let's talk about the actual coolest Abbs defenseman, and that's Sam Malinski. He's been fantastic. I mentioned the post-trade line stats for the Aves in that time. They're up 10 to 5 in his 5-15 minutes. That's with a couple goals. He scored himself that have been called back and taken off the board with off-side reviews. And I love what I'm seeing from him and his game.

And we talk so much about what makes the Aves so effective in-zone at 5-1-5, that kind of ability to put the fear of got into the opposing defense by causing them to sag back and kind of compress the zone. So there's all these pockets of space for Ab's defensemen to get lost, weak side and go downhill and create those shots. And what McCar executes so beautifully, Malinsky's able to replicate some percentage of that. I don't know what percentage it is, but it's some non-trivial one.

And he's been a delight to watch. And in particular, you know, Gerard's out now. But we've seen a bunch of minutes this season, I think, like 290 total between and him and Gerard playing together, and they're up 60 to 5 in that time. And post-trade deadline and seeing kind of how the defense pair shook out, one of my questions was in a playoff setting, what Jared Bednar would do with his defensive deployment, and whether in a playoff series he'd be comfortable having these extended shifts

where he sends those two guys out there, given their relative size or lack thereof, or whether he'd split them up and play them the way he has at times, one of them with Lingram, one of them with Mansus, or Eric Johnson or how that would look. And there's kind of a way for him to do both in the sense that the ads are so good at having these sustained offensive zone sequences where they can kind of keep the other team pinned and then bring on fresh bodies. And so on the fly, you can sneak on Malinski and then eventually Gerard or vice versa and get them out there and then just protect them so they're not spending time in their own zone necessarily. I think they're going to entertain that quite a bit.

but I'm curious for your take on kind of how that's going to shake out the way Bednar is going to be able to manufacture those minutes for them because it's clear when they're out there. They're able to sort of tilt the ice a little bit and replicate a lot of what the abs do so well when they have their top five man unit. Yeah, it is funny because Molensky will do some things where you're like, oh, that's Diet Makar. You know, like it's, he does give you a little bit of that same look sometimes, but it's, I mean, he's killed Makar. He's obviously not avert. so it doesn't look quite as crisp or as effective. But with Molinsky, his highs are really high where you're like, whoa, look at this guy.

And then his lows, he'll have a game where it just doesn't seem like he can get anything going. He's so sloppy with the puck. I don't know. I don't, for my money, if Josh Manson and Gerard are healthy for the start of the postseason, which given Josh Manson's career and, you know, particularly, particularly this season may not be a wise bet to make. But if that, if both of those guys are in the lineup, I don't know that Sam Blinsky plays. Like, I'm not, I think he would be in a rotation with Eric Johnson as like the quote unquote sixth guy.

I do think part of the issue is where do you put him? Because as you mentioned, putting Gerard and Malinsky out there together, you know, the Sam's. are fun, but they're kind of like regular season fun, not we're going to go win a playoff game fun. I don't know that there's a lot of trust there because then you're putting Lindgren and Manson or Lindgren and Johnson together. Those aren't combinations that you really trust. Ryan Lindgren in particular needs to be with a puck mover because he's not very good

with the puck. So it seems natural. If there's no Josh Manson, I think this makes it a little easier to go. to work those combinations where you'd probably go like Gerard Johnson and then Lindgren-Milinski just to keep the handedness the same and Gerard and Johnson used to play together a lot. So there's a lot of familiarity there. If Manson is healthy,

the rub here I think is that Sam Gerard and Josh Manson have been bad together. Yeah. All season. They've been bad together. They had extended stretches where they were together last season and they were really bad. and so it's it's kind of this like are you going to Lindgren and Malinsky together kind of leaves you with Gerard and Manson before Manson got hurt we saw we saw that they were running a lot of Lindgren and the Sam's together which was again for a regular for the regular season I don't really have a big issue with it but I think both of those pairings it exposes significant weaknesses that are much easier to exploit in a best of seven where you just attack, attack, attack, and you drill down on that. Regular season, teams aren't doing those types of things.

They aren't getting into the minutia of like, okay, hey, now we're going to go out and match against this line or that line. It's a lot more of a broad look when you're just playing a team, a different team every night. In a best of seven, you start to go after those types of things. And one, that's for one reason. That's one reason why I think if Manson is healthy, there will be a rotation of Johnson and Malinsky, they'll kind of in and out.

But also because it just leaves them in a vulnerable position of do you really want to go with Gerard and Manson together, knowing that the results have been bad, consistently bad, and exposing you to, okay, well, this has been bad all year long. now we're in the playoffs and it's bad yeah yeah they've been outscored 2616 manson and gerard have as a pair at 5-on-5 this season and above 450 minutes or so so yeah that would be a concern of mine i generally i get what you're saying what i love is when teams aren't so preoccupied or obsessed with well-roundedness in terms of like all right well we need like every single type of skill set and so we're going to try to check

these boxes as much as we can as opposed to strengthening a strength, right, which is what playing Malinsky and Gerard together would clearly be for the abs. It's a bit tougher to pull off. I'm with you. And especially for an NHL coach, we've seen that you might go in with that with that intention. And then you have a couple shifts where you're getting beat up down low. You don't box out on a rebound, cost you a goal. And all of a sudden, you pull the plug on that. But I love watching Malinsky play for now. And I also just love that phenomenon. It reminds me of when Warren Fogel was on Oilers and you'd like casually look over to an Oilers game and you'd see him do something. You're like, oh, that was cool. That McDavid did that. And you're like, oh, no, it was actually

Warren Fogel. That's kind of similar to here to what you're saying where it's like, whoa, nice gold by Kelmacar. And then all of a sudden, it's like, oh, no, that was actually Sam Malinski. That's interesting. Let's quickly talk about the power play. I know that when we did our nature's episode, we spoke about it. We have a bigger sample size now. But I just wanted to circle back to that because first 50 games with Miko Ranton in there, there were 7.5 goals per hour, which was 19th in the league and clearly not good enough. In the, whatever, 90 or so minutes that we've seen them have McKinnon, McCarra, and Naches out there with the top unit. They're nearly 12 goals an hour. Now for context, Vegas is first in the league at 11.7 for the season. Winnipeg

is second at 11.3. Those are the only two teams above 11. That's typically a range that's reserved for the Oilers and the lightning power plays. And so that speaks to how efficient they've been. We've seen mixing and matching there with Lechanan and Druin and Etchkin since he returned, certainly. But it's clear that the movement there and the

increased number of options, I guess, the lack of predictability in terms of not just looking for cross-ice one-timers, but having McKinnon pop around the zone and be behind the net and then circling around replicates a lot of what makes them so difficult to wrangle at 5-15. And so I love seeing that from

And I think that that's another important piece of this, right? For all the talk about the improved defense and the 5-15 play and the metrics we mentioned from the bottom six, we know the outsized impact that converting on your opportunities when you get the odd power play here or there in a playoff series can have. And it seems like they're a much better positioned to do so with this current version of their five-man unit than they were previously. Yeah, definitely. As you said, the unpredictability with Natchez and McKinnon moving. around the zone because they, you know, both being right-handed, they play on the same wall a lot where they'll drop the puck to each other and then just switch places. And then one guy will just kind of roam

around. And it has taken a sledgehammer to the stagnation that that was the McKinnon-McCarr-Rantan power play, whereas those three guys would just kind of pass it around. And then eventually McKinnon would try and throw a cross-ice pass to Rantan-in, and Rantan-in would one-time it and it would either go well or it wouldn't. And that was kind of it. Like that was sort of their plan. And, you know, those guys were obviously elite players. So they were getting away with it every once in a while.

But it started to look really, really bad. And this version of it does not have that problem. The playmaking of Netchis and the unpredictability of it. And then you do have, Valenuchikin has been great in the middle of the ice there. he's dangerous, he's got enough skill where he gets some difficult to handle passes in tight, he has the hands to make a play with them.

He can do some different things. And sneaky good, Jonathan Duran on the other side, he's not like a big one-time guy that you would, like you don't associate Jonathan Duran with a one-timer, but because the playmaking is so good around him that it does give him some clean looks, But he's also such a smart player and he's so good, reading the ice and reading what's going on,

that very rarely does the puck get to Jonathan Duran and just stop. And then he gathers it and he looks around. There's not a lot of that. I don't want to say almost always. It's probably too strong, but a lot of the time, plenty of the time. Duran gets the puck and he just one touches that somewhere. He knows exactly what he's doing. And plenty of times that has meant going to the back door for an even better.

look for an easy tap-in. And that, watching the way that they pull apart P-Ks and breaking down that structure on a consistent basis has been, again, after watching all that stagnation set in earlier in the year,

it's been wonderful to see that on these power plays, any given time, you just never really know. And then, oh, yeah, Keel McCar is just kind of like roaming the top of the zone, just asking teams, are you really going to make this mistake? Because they have to choose. Do you dedicate a guy to stay out high to try and defend against McCar? Or do you try

and bring that guy down lower a little bit to stop all of the cross-life passing that's going on? They have to make a choice there. And sometimes they get away with it, but a lot of times they're getting beat because the talent of the players involved is just so high. And it has, frankly, it has helped that Nathan McKinnon has resumed shooting pucks again on the power play. He listened to our show a couple months ago and he was like, all right, fine, I'll do it. I just don't want you guys. Yeah. Anytime, Nate, I got you.

But that, I mean, it's just made them multiple on the power play where they had the same pathways to success in the past. Now, pick one. It's a true pick your poison situation where there's just not a good option. For my money, I would still, Nitchie is such a great. is such a great asset in the puck retrieval aspect of it, that having him there isn't bad. But Brock Nelson is one of the best bumper players in the NHL and has the kind of finishing ability that I would want in the middle of the ice.

I probably would prefer to have him there. It also gives them another face-off guy to go to bat with. But to his credit, Nathan McKinnon's been really good at face-offs for like a month now. So almost two months, actually. So maybe that's not such a big deal. But it's hard to argue with the results that they're putting up because they are high end. This is tip top stuff. It is.

I want to close out today's show with you looking ahead a little bit to the playoffs and potential round one matchups. And the reason why I'm framing it with that uncertainty, I was sort of buckling in for that death match you were alluding to between the abs and the stars in round one is the fact that the stars just keep winning games. They've won seven in a row now on Thursday night. they were being outshot 23 to 11 by the Preds with like four minutes left in the second period. And then they just went off and rattled off five straight goals and won that game comfortably. Winnipeg had a huge win of their own in Vegas. But you look up and with what two weeks left in the season, Dallas is four points back with a game in hand. They have a head-to-head on April 10th in Dallas, which I'd argue is probably the single most important regular season game of the year in the entire NHL because the winner of it is not only going.

going to get first in the central and play wildcard two, which looks like a limping in Minnesota wild team as opposed to the abs, but is also going to have home ice in the second is most likely going to win the West outright, be the first seat throughout, and win the president's trophy and get home ice in a potential Stanley Cup finals. So the impact of that is unimaginable. It's interesting, the stars, not only that head-to-head against Winnipeggis at home, four of their last seven are at home, five of their last seven or against non-playoff teams. And so what seemed like a certainty, which was the Jets winning the Central and getting to wait to play

either Colorado or Dallas till round two and kind of getting this confidence booster against Minnesota or whoever their first round opponent was in round one, all of a sudden now that's not as much of a certainty anymore either. And I feel like just tracking that for these final two weeks is probably going to be the most interesting storyline in the league. Yeah, and I mean, it's, It's hugely important, right?

Because it's not just home ice, but you're going to get Colorado in Road 1. But both of those teams have a major injury that may not be available to them in round one because Gabe Valardi not being there for Winnipeg is a big deal for them. Obviously, no Miro Hayskinan is a really big deal for Dallas. I like both of those teams' chances against Minnesota in a round one series, even with those guys missing. And then potentially getting those guys back for a round two matchup against whoever comes out of the matchup against Colorado. Great.

Like you're feeling much better about those. That's a much better pathway than we're going to go in injured with a key injury against an avalanche team that is likely getting Gabe Landisguk back. I, you don't want that. You're trying to get through four rounds here. you just don't want Colorado in round one with each of them facing a key injury. If Winnipeg blows this, then you're talking about all the history and all the self-doubt and all the issues that they have that they've had over the last few years, and especially against Colorado, where it's like, hey, we just had a really great regular season

and now we get the abs who blew our doors off in the playoffs last year. That, it just feels like it's a recipe for a full scale meltdown in Winnipey. where yes, they will also have the opportunity to exercise some demons if they beat Colorado, but not having Gabe Valardi against the abs and having, you know, let's be honest here. If any of these other teams had Vlad Nemestikov as one of their top three centers in a postseason series, you would say that's a big weakness. It's a big weakness for the Jets. It's a problem.

Their fascination with playing Logan Stanley, it's a problem. Are they going to be able to overcome those things? and deal with Colorado in round one. Colorado and round one is a much tougher matchup than this beat-up, the version of the wild, who are, as you said, limping into the postseason. Even if Erick and Kupreezov get healthy, I'll take whoever, you know, Dallas or Winnipeg,

I will pick to beat Minnesota. That job obviously gets a lot harder if Kripz and Erick are healthy. I don't really know the status of them. It's like we're still a couple weeks away, so things can change. But both Dallas and Winnipeg have a key injury going in, that they are likely going into round one

with either a compromised player or a missing player. And you're a lot more comfortable doing that against Minnesota than Colorado. It's a really important thing for them because this abs team is a buzzsaw in its own right. And it's deep and it's big and it's fast and it's physical. And all three layers of the team have been very good. You don't, obviously, I'm going,

I'm a biased source here, okay? I cover the abs on a day-to-day basis, but I don't think either one of those teams want Colorado in round one. Maybe not even in round two. Yeah. No, I think you keep a good eye on the league in general and have good takes. The Valardi thing is obviously huge and not having them potentially is a massive blow to the Jets. I'd argue that their unwillingness that you referenced to quit Logan Stanley is the much bigger issue,

because he takes a ton of penalties, which, as we said, would be a problem in a series against Colorado with the way their power plays looked. And then the way he handles the puck and how slow he is. I mean,

he had this play in L.A. this past week where he thought he was Kel McCar for a second and he tried to break the puck out and was flying through the neutral zone and then just gets pickpocketed by Kusbenko falls and it's an immediate goal against. And the list of goals against

and the Jets have given up very few of them this season that can be directly. trace back to a Logan Stanley blown coverage or inability to move or mishandle the puck is growing egregiously long. I'd argue, you know, the stars are currently the prohibitive favorite on the betting market to win the Stanley Cup. I'd argue, and the upside for them is pretty clear because of the talent up front and their ability to just rattle off a bunch of goals in a short period of time. And we even saw it in the one recent meeting they played in Colorado, where they were getting significantly outplayed for the entirety of the game and the first two periods look like a 40 minute

abs power play and then they just score a couple quick goals off a few mistakes and force overtime and at least get salvage one point out of it but the time to play them probably is in round one not only have we heard that mirror haykinen may not be available for the first couple games or whatever it's not a certainty that it'll just be back for game one but even when he comes back i can't imagine that he's going to be playing 28 minutes on the top pair and moving around the same way he was previously given the injury he had to his knee. And so if that's going to be, require a bit of an adjustment period, which is fair to assume,

that's probably the time you want to play them as opposed to round two when, all right, you at least advanced and got a round one win. But all of a sudden now it's much more likely that he's closer to the regular version of himself. And at that point, I imagine this star's team just looks entirely different. Because right now, as I said,

they won seven or a row. They have points in 10 straight. Every single game, it's like, all right, they won 4-1, but they got out shot 36 to 20. and at some point that's going to catch up to you,

especially as the quality of competition improves. And so that would certainly happen in whatever matchup they went against Colorado. So yeah, it'll be very interesting to see both teams have their own question marks. And I'm curious to see how it plays out. It feels like from the ass perspective, though, you would rather play Dallas in round one just because of that, Miro Hayskin in question, I feel like. Yeah, Dallas's defense isn't very good without Miro Hayskin.

I mean, they don't offend in the neutral zone at all right now. It's like literally just yards of open space for you to skate. And as we know, against the abs, if you give them that much space, they are going to punish you downhill. And you look at the way that the star, yeah, the stars have the ability to rip off those runs of goals, but their form right now isn't very good. They're winning a lot of games,

but the way that they're doing it inside of games, are they being buoyed a little bit by a not very competitive schedule? I think so. The games that I've watched of the stars recently I've been really unimpressed with that team. Are they a little bit in cruise control? It's a fair question for all of these teams

that are kind of settled into where they're going to be in the postseason. I'm really curious how that Winnipeg Dallas game goes though because I think there's a lot of fear in Winnipeg and I think that Dallas just lives with that kind of attack mentality of like we're just going to go and take it.

That's a really strong top-to-bobes. bottom roster, but I don't like their defense without Mero Hayskin. And with him, you can shelter a bad third pairing a lot easier. But it's important, it's important for those two teams to not get Colorado in one because yikes. I agree. All right, AJ, we're going to get out of here.

I'll let you plug some stuff on the way. I'll let the listeners know where you can check you out, what you've got cooking up. And it's going to be an exciting postseason. I imagine you're going to be covering it all. You do the game breakdowns for D.S. So I imagine that'll continue as we get into the playoffs. Yeah, I mean, I do pretty much all of our avalanche writing over at the dnvr.com. And, you know, I'm on Twitter at Return of AJ.

And the DNVR Avalanche Twitter account is sometimes me posting stuff that I've written. So those are all good, good resources, the DNVR Avalanche podcast on YouTube. I will be on regularly through the postseason. those are all good places to find me if you really like listening to me drone on. All right, buddy, we'll keep up the great work, regardless of whether it's half stars or abs jets, we'll have you back on. We'll try to loop in our pal, Megan Angley as well, and get back the roundtable with the three of us once we get into the postseason. That's going to be all from us, or for the two of us. Today, I'll be back myself with one more episode to close the week out.

Thank you for listening to the Hockey, Kodakas streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.