The Hockey PDOcast - The Canadiens deep dive with Andrew Berkshire

Episode Date: November 15, 2022

Dimitri welcomes in Andrew Berskhire as the pair run through a deep dive on the Montreal Canadiens.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 P.DEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovic. Welcome to the Hockey PEOCast. My name is Dimitra Villapovich. And joining me for the first time this season, first time in a long time, too busy with his own show these days to be wasting time on the PEDOCAST. It's my pal, Andrew Bres for Andrew.

What's going on, man? Never too busy, Demetri. Never too busy. Lots going on, obviously, you know, running seven shows now instead of just one at SDPN. But, you know, times are changing. I'm going from a stringer to manager now. It's weird that I started out my hockey media career as a manager at Eisenhower Prize.

And now I'm back there again. It's fun. It's fun to watch a team kind of do a lot of work and get to know each other and come together. It's fun. Yeah, certainly. And you and I have done many podcasts together over the years. And so I'm excited to jump back into this with you. I'm happy for you because I know last year was incredibly rough timing to be starting a HAB's post-game show during at least the first whatever 35, 40 games until they made the coaching change was just a miserable slog.

And I can speak from a personal experience because you had me on after a game in December, I believe. It was against the Colorado Avalanche. And that forced me to actually sit down and watch a full HAB's game from start to finish. and sorry about that it was they and i actually looked back at it because i remember it being really bad so i went back into the box score they finished that game with 20 shots total and they were heavily featuring ben charott on the first unit power play which it worked out because they they wound up getting a pretty good return for him and so it made sense to uh to be featuring them in a role where he might actually score some points and he scored a power play goal in that game funny enough but

it was um it was a pretty bleak experience and so at least this season you know all the wins are nice but I think just the product and that entertainment value of it itself is such a boon for you. Yeah, it's so much more fun this year just to have things to talk about that aren't like, when will this coach get fired, you know? And, you know, Marty St. Louis is so engaging in posting press conferences and stuff that we get sometimes some things to react to during the show as well as we do our post gamers. And he's so insightful for like coaches usually don't like to give a lot, but he gives really insightful answers.

You can tell he thinks about things before he says them. So you can see the plan laid out for management down to coaching. And it's just really interesting to watch this play out. And obviously the winning has been more unexpected this year than we like no one expected them to be about 500 at any point this season. Yeah. So that's fun. But you also have people who really want to see them tank who are frustrated.

So it's fun to try to balance that and be like, listen, there's going to be some rough stretches. It's going to be okay. they're going to go 10 games without winning for sure at some point this season. But none of the dismal stuff that was happening last year where they couldn't even get like 20 shots you mentioned last game against Carra Lide. That was a good performance for them last year in the first 45 games. There were a few games where I feel like they got like 14, 16 shots and it was miserable. Yeah.

Well, they entered this year. They entered the season with the third lowest Obrunder. I believe only the coyotes and the Blackhawks were projected for or had a little. lower point total line theirs is at 72 and a half. Right now they're playing at like a 93 point pace or something. They're 8, 6 and 1. They have a plus 4, 5 and 5-and-5 goal differential, kind of treading water and basically breaking even overall. But I think you kind of, you brought up a good point there. We're on the one hand, like clearly there's still a lot of work to be done. And I think everyone involved in the organization would fully agree with that, regardless of what the wins, loss,

totals are like in these next coming weeks. I think it's going to come. Like I think they can kind of have their cake and eat it here too. It's a long season. I think the thing that I've been surprised by, beyond all the offensive stuff, and we're going to talk about Coffield and Suzuki and Doc and all that. But I was expecting with the state of the blue line, especially with how young it was and how much they were relying on some of these younger players, that there'd be some blow-up performances early in the year where they would just look like they had no chance that they'd be down like eight to one at some point and just be completely bleeding shots and chances against. And for the most part, it's actually been like highly respectable pretty much every game. I think

there's only maybe been one or two stinkers so far, but for the most part, they've been in pretty much all these games. Yeah, and really the one major stink that they had was against Detroit, the second game of the season. I think Detroit had something like 80% of the expected goals in that game. Like, it was an absolute throttling, but Jake Allen was so great that it ended up being, I think it was one nothing, an actual score and they scored two nothing, two empty netters, I believe they might have scored a second one on Allen at some point in that game.

I can't remember. but the big thing has been like the goaltending has held them in when the defense has made mistakes, right? Like guys like Arborzacai who have been fun to watch, even if he wasn't, you know, performing admirably, coming out of nowhere, you know, he was employed at Costco during the pandemic when he couldn't play hockey, didn't play hockey that year. Really surprised everyone making the team at 21 years old and, you know, beating up Zach Cassian was extremely funny and throwing them around like a rag doll. but, you know, scoring goals, he's getting some power play time now. Obviously, defensively, has lots of things to work on. But when those guys mess up, both Jake Allen and Sam Montembeau have been really strong. So having that at the beginning of the year to give those guys confidence is really fun.

And I think what we're going to end up seeing is the fact that Mike Matheson, who's their number one defenseman presumptively, he's been out. He's going to miss, I think, still eight weeks to start the season with an abdominal injury. I am guessing what's going to happen is he's going to come back and they're going to start losing and everyone's going to be like, oh, it's all the veterans that are wrecking things, but this is just, you know, the way the cookie crumbles sometimes where, yeah, they're getting good results right now, but I think everybody knows that the top line is not going to score on, I think it's like 18 or 19% of their shots at even strength right now, 17% overall.

And the goalies, they won't. Yeah, no, not with that attitude. but the goalies as well. Jake Allen is a good player, but can get tired. San Montembo has been superb this year, like absolutely superb, but I don't think he's this good. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, let's focus on the fun stuff here.

Let's talk about the offense in that first line. So for Cole Cofield, this season he's got nine goals and 16 points in 15 games. It's kind of a continuation of what we saw in the second half of last year. where his splits from when Marty San Luis took over behind the bench were pretty much night and day compared to the first 30 games or so he played under Dominic Disharm. I've got some stats right here. So it's 52 games total that Caulfields played under Marty St. Louis so far. 21, 5 on 5 goals, which is behind just Austin Matthews, who has 22, which leads to league in that time period.

31 all situations goals, 51 points. So kind of going along at a point per game pace. He's shooting slightly more often under Marty St. Louis, but honestly, I think it's like the shot rate and the chance rate is pretty negligible compared to the two. I think when you go back and actually look at all of the individual shots, which I've done from the start of last year to what he's been doing since then, what really stands out is how much he's getting in better spots to shoot from, right? Whether it's going out on the rush more often. I've got him down for 18 of his 42 5-1-5 shots on goal this year, or kind of what I classify as rush shots where he's

coming downhill, he's got space and he's firing it before the opposing D can get set. On the power play, which we can talk about more, hasn't necessarily been successful as a whole, despite how good this top line's been. He's getting closer when he's shooting, right? At the start of last year, for some reason, he was like standing almost near the blue line from his left flank spot. And now when Suzuki's doing that crossing pass to him, he's getting closer and closer to the net and at least shooting from a more optimal position.

And so I'm kind of curious about how much of that is just the fact that he's got a coach who can kind of relate to him more and, you know, can speak from personal experience and can kind of like empower him and instill that confidence in it. How much of it is an actual just good old fashioned tactical adjustment that they've made and how much of it is like some miscellaneous combination of the two because the results are so much better. And I think you can actually tangibly point to something like the shooting percentage is up and it wasn't going to be as low as it was. under Dominic Dusharne, regardless of what he did. But there's clear things that he's changed to his game that have resulted in this. It isn't just kind of just hoping things get better and then magically doing so. Like he's fundamentally changed his game and the results have come along. Yeah, there's definitely, there's like a confluence of things coming together at all the right time, right?

Like Dom Dusharme kind of defended himself over the summer. He talked about how, like, Cole Cawfield, he was very positive about Cole Cawfield talking about how he was trying like so hard even in training camp that he ended up injuring himself in preseason so he started last season i think he entered his groin or something like that and it kind of stopped him from having that uh initial burst of speed which for a small player makes a huge difference right because you've got to have some escapeability to get your shots off or else those big defenders are going to be in your way all the time and then there's the overthinking that came with dom du charm's like very meticulous defensive minded system

the major change like yeah his shot rates up I think three shots per hour this year over last year just in chunks which is great because I think if you're having Cole Coffield, you'll get 14 shots on that per hour that's fantastic and even

pretty good yeah but the biggest change between Cole Coffield under Doucharm and under Marty St. Louis is that he feels the freedom to stick with plays where he doesn't have the puck especially in the offensive zone

both him and Suzuki the analogy that I keep on coming back to this year is if you watch them in the offensive zone for checking, they almost look like two little sharks swimming around the zone. And they put pressure on, but they're usually not like physically forechecking guys, right? So they're both applying pressure and waiting for opponents to make a mistake. And when they don't, not much happens. But if they do, one little puck bobble, both of them are so quick to react that it's just like bang, bang,

all of a sudden it's in the net or a great scoring chance at the very least. their ability to create those chances off of failed plays or misplays by the opponents is just like crazy elevated both from the coaching change last year and then onto this year there's like another step together as they built more chemistry and I think that's where a lot of Caulfield's offenses come from is that like counterattack within the offensive zone off of a forechecking play which is weird because everyone expects them to be the rush guy and he does score from there too. But having, uh, like he's, he's a good skater, but he's not McDavid, right? Like he's not going to be blowing past guys. He's not even like Paul Byron in terms

of speed. So adding another layer where he can, uh, create offense that isn't just off the rush makes him such a better player. And I feel like having that freedom to create more offense has actually made him better defensively. He's more engaged trying to create turnovers in all three zones. So it's kind of been like the benefit all around. I know their defensive numbers is here are abysmal. But that's changed a little bit once Kirby Doc got put on that line. I think they're just the way that the Canadians are constructed, that line taking all the heavy matchups, usually in front of the ghouli Savard pairing. It's not built to with an emphasis on Samar. Yeah. Yeah. Like no offense to Savard. He does what he does well. Yes. It's just that that

doesn't translate to getting the puck out of the zone. Yeah. If you play in some, sort of fantasy format that gives you points for block shots. He does that incredibly well. No, no, there's a time in place for it. But certainly, like, his defensive strategy, especially at this point of his career, it was even in his prime. But at this point with what he is physically, it's a lot of like sit back and try to block the shot as opposed to proactively going out and defending in an aggressive manner.

And so that's going to happen. I was curious about the defensive metrics there because, you know, they're not necessarily great. my point is that it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. Like I know people, listen, like Suzuki, when he burst onto the scene, right, there was, there were the Patrice Bergeron-com. He was, he was sort of packaged as, you know, a two-way center with an emphasis on the defensive side of things. And then I think his offensive game, especially playing with Caulfield now under Murray-St.

Louis, you've seen that flourish to an even higher degree with the playmaking and his ability to make passes that are really magical. I know people would like to see good habits from young players be instilled in terms of being reliable and responsible and at both ends. I don't think, like you can kind of have your cake and eat it too, but I think this is a much superior alternative to me where you're just letting young players play freely and embrace their skill and try to score goals and do that as opposed to getting them to basically just dump the puck out, stay back in defensive posture. and try to not give up anything against. I think you can probably find a middle ground between the two, but I think if you're picking, I'd much rather this approach than the alternative.

Yeah, I think we saw from Suzuki, his first two years in the league, that he can put up, sorry, elite defensive numbers, but while he's doing that, he really struggled to produce offensively, and part of that could be lineups, part of it, or, sorry, linemates could be that he was young,

but overall, especially his playmaking really suffered, when he was the guy who had to do all the defensive load. But, you know, his habits are still good in terms of, like, being on the back check, finding his man. There are times that he loses his guy, but I think everyone in the NHL outside of like Patrice Bergeron does from time to time, you can make a highlight pack to make anybody look bad. Right. But, you know, I think that you're right that it makes sense to focus on the offense

because at the end of the day, that's where the NHL is trending anyway. and what's more difficult, I think, to be in the NHL, an offensive player or a defensive player. I'm not saying defense is easy, but what's more rare, right? A 40 goal score or a guy who can defend on the wing, it's the 40 goal score every time. And having those guys develop into that and having Suzuki flex his offensive muscles

and show how great he can be outside of the power play has just been a joy to watch. And now adding Doc onto that line, who is a strong. strong defensive presence while adding a little bit of physicality along the boards. And underrated playmaking ability of his own, by the way, like incredible playmaker so far this season for Canadians

has really solidified them. And I believe every game but one of them with that trio together, they've been above 50% in XG and Corsi. So good signs early on, obviously tiny sample size. But even if the scoring or when the scoring eventually drops off for that line. I feel like we'll see some decent results overall. Well, here's a thing. There's basically for most players, there's two ways to post good defensive

metrics in the NHL. There's being just one of the best players in the league and having the puck at all times in the offensive zone and just being such a dominant force that you're just not really having to defend. And that's very rare. And that's obviously, that would be ideal. But very few players can ascend to that level consistently. And even we've seen with players like McDavid where if a lot of your game is predicated on attacking off the rush, you're going to be exposed defensively to giving up chances against when the puck doesn't go into the net, right? So it's kind of a cat and mouse game, a give and take. The other way is to be kind of your traditional third line winger that always gets, you know,

low-key, sulky buzz on hockey Twitter. But in reality, it's like, this player's sole mission for his 40-second shift is to keep the puck along the boards and make sure nothing happens. And that's great because that's their job, right? They're not being paid to try to produce offense. They're being paid to give their top players a breather, go out sometimes against the other team's best players and make sure nothing happens. And if you come away with a 40 second shift where the other team's best players didn't do

anything, you chalk that up as a win. Now, the HABs certainly don't want their top line to be playing that way, nor do they have the luxury of doing so because they're their best players. so they need them to produce offensively. So when you start opening it up and, you know, you mentioned how they found different ways to attack off the forecheck and kind of cycle the puck around and have Suzuki and Caulfield pop up in the slot and get shots that way, there's certainly that and that's great.

But they also need to get out in transition. And I think they have done a better job of doing so. And when you do that, like I said, it's going to expose you a bit defensively. So kind of sketchy defensive metrics kind of come with a territory when you play that way. And that's why I think it's perfectly fine. especially with the expectations for the habs this year. Yeah. You know, if this was a team that was legitimately contending for a Stanley Cup,

you'd like to see the top line post better defensive metrics. But for the most part, I'm fine with them losing 6'5 and that line scoring two cool goals every game. And I think a lot of fans would take that as well. Oh, 100%. 100%. And I think that's what everybody expected coming into the season. They were expecting to be happy with that kind of game.

So the fact they've been traded to eight wins through 15 games, which, by the way, as many as Dom DeS charm had after 45 last year. Like, hard to think about, you know, how bad it actually was. But now that they've been treated to that, it, like, it's the most fired up, honestly, that I've seen the fan base, I guess, since the cup run. But even the cup run, there was like a trepidation about it, right? Because no one truly believed, I don't think that that team could get it done.

So it was like, euphoria when they beat the Leafs, and then they curbstomp the Jets. and then euphoria when they scraped by the golden nights and then they were rewarded with Tampa and everyone was like oh crap well it was also such a weird time in the world as well and not being able to like for sure be at the games fully and all that and kind of just yeah understandably waiting for the other shoot-a-jured job just because it was such a Cinderella story like it it totally makes sense and I think alleviating some of those expectations and pressure

and then this kind of just being found money in a way like it's funny how human sort of psychology or perception works because it's like if you come in it with the absolute bare minimum expectations, every single positive thing that happens for you is like finding a $5 bill in your pocket. You're like, oh, this is sweet. Like nice. I can go get myself something,

it's something fun today. It's like, I know you're from BC, so you wouldn't know this fully the way many Canadians would, Demetri, but it's like in the winter, when you have a random day that's zero degrees

and you're out there on your shorts and hoodie. Like, this is fantastic. And then in the fall, when your first day, like around zero degrees, you're like, oh my God,

it's so cold. This is awful. It's the same thing. Oh, it's getting pretty cold. here this year. So I'm starting to live that life. Don't don't you worry about me. You know, you mentioned, you mentioned doc there. I did want to give him some love as well. He's going to get overshadow a little bit because of, you know, especially the connection between coffee than Suzuki

and how that's like props up. You watch the Hawkingette counter broadcasting against the pens. And they're like showing those two guys coming to the ring together and kind of like how they play off each other both on and off the ice. And so a lot of the focus is going to go towards them, but not only have the underlying numbers become significantly better in the small sample that they played with Doc, but I really like what I've seen from him on the wing. And our pal Thomas Rant is going to love us talking about this because he was sort of pounding the table all offseason being like, I like Kirby Doc, but as a winger. And it makes sense when you see it now because I think he's done, the playmaking, he's made a few

plays off the wall getting the puck to Caulfield, cross-ice, that have been really nice. But just seeing the way he's kind of using his frame now all of a sudden to win battles and to kind of establish position even in front of the net, it's alleviated a lot of the pressure of having to do the heavy lifting, carrying the pocket, controlling the middle of the ice and allowed him to kind of focus on things that he can manage better and do better using his physical traits. And so seeing it in practice now, it's like, oh, this makes a lot of sense. And he's so much better suited to do this than being a top six center where he has to carry much more of the load. yeah it's really been great and you know i don't know if he's going to be a winger forever i think they're they're very open to him going back to center but not having to do faceoffs which is something he clearly struggles uh is uh definitely a positive for him it lets him like just forget about that that's a struggle and play the game which it's something again got to give credit to marty he he's talked about like trying to get people into their comfort zones so that they excel not and

you know you want to challenge people of course but you want to get them in a space where they feel like they can do, do things first, and then you add extra layers of challenge to their game so that they can grow. And it's just been fantastic for Doc. I was, I was wondering if he would be able to transition his playmaking ability to the wing, because, you know, it's much easier,

I think, not easier, is not the right thing. You have many more options in the middle. Right. To pass than you do on the wing. You only have a couple of options to do that. But he's been fantastic.

Like, I think his move towards. like his natural brain moving towards center also creates more movement in the offensive zone than a guy who just sticks on the boards and and tries to make everything happen from there. So there's that. And I also, I really like how well he's able to, uh, defend the opponent trying to exit their zone. He's very good at getting on them very quickly. He's great at holding the blue line.

And he's actually been, whenever they've tried it, him up at the point has been incredible. Like he sees the ice really well. He's got that long reach. He's a good skater. So he keeps the puck in very well at the point. He's a good distributor. And sometimes he can sneak a little shot in there. He doesn't shoot very much.

But I think when you're playing with Cool Cofield and Nick Suzuki, you dish probably more often than you need to anyway. Well, and I'm perfectly fine with that. I like him as a distributor. I think his instincts in terms of what to do with the puck in those situations is actually quite good. Especially for a young player. Like it's easy.

You know, he's what? I guess he's 21 still for another month or so he turns 22. to in the new year, but he's played about roughly like two full NHL seasons worth so far. And that's that's really nothing in the grand scheme of things. He's been around forever and we've kind of, you know, we've been familiar with him at the NHL level for a long time. But because of injuries, because of being up and down, he's really only played two full seasons worth of games.

And so in the grand scheme of things for development, that's really not that much. We still don't necessarily know what type of player he's going to be. And I think we're seeing a lot more flashes of what he's capable with kind of, I think that's a great point you made in terms of the options. I think narrowing the route tree and allowing him to kind of just focus on what he needs to do and what he does well is a recipe for success. Now, I understand the desire, oh, if we can take this and channel it and then put him down the middle, that makes him even more valuable. And they can explore that down the road. But I think for now, I think they've really stumbled on a nice combination between these three. They have. And I think

as much as they could do that with Doug, I don't think they're in any rush to either because, you know, they're going to get a good player in this draft, most likely a center. I have zero doubt that Hughes will try to move heaven and earth to, if he doesn't get a top three pick in the lottery. To try to finagle one, I think he would be willing to trade pretty much anything to get into that top three. It seems like they're very motivated to make this rebuild, you know, have not only, not only work, but make a splash with it.

And then there's Owen Beck down in the OHL who almost made the team as an 18-year-old this year. I'd be kind of shocked if he's not on the team next year. He is like talk about I don't want to compare him to Patrice Bergeron because it's just an unfair comparison. Like Patrice Bergeron should be a first ballot Hall of Famer. The most probably like still somehow the most underrated player of his generation. Right. But Owen Beck reminds me of Jeff Halpern.

That's the guy that I keep on bringing up who is is not like a high tier player for anyone. But people forget that Jeff Halpern was like a first line center for Washington for like a good 10 years. he ended his career as a fourth line center in Montreal, and the entire time was spectacular. Everywhere Jeff Halpern went, his line was excellent. He was quiet. He was intelligent. He put up decent offensive production,

and that's just what his whole career was. And I feel like that's what Owen Beck is going to be. Of all the Canadians prospects that they drafted under Kent Hughes, and over the last couple of years, with Mark Bergevin, outside of Cole Coughfield and Caden Gully, who are already established, he's the one that I look at, and I'm like, you're an NHLer, and there's almost no chance of you not being an NHLer.

Jeff Halpern's listening to this podcast right now going like, nice, I got a shout out. Yes. Much love to Jeff Halper. And I always try to shout out Jeff Halper when I can. I love that. All right, Andrew, let's take a quick break here. And then when we come back, we're going to keep talking about the surprisingly fun of Montreal Canadians.

You were listening to the Hockeyo cast here on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right, Andrew, we're back. One other point that I wanted to make about this topic. line. I mentioned it a bit earlier in passing, but it is strange to me that the power play is still only 26th and goals, 29th and expected goal rate generated, considering that in the traditional modern game, when you think about what a top power play should look like, it's generally built through two elite players on opposite flanks that can generally one guy's going to be more of a passer and the other guy's going to be looking for the shot, but both guys can kind of work

that East-West action together. And the HABS, in theory, have this in Suzuki and Caulfield, and we've seen them score some nice goals doing so. But in totality, the results still haven't been there. And that's a bit of a bit of a puzzling thing to me because in the past, you know, the power play has been an issue for the Canadians for a long time, but it was understandable because a lot of their strategy was, well, let's pass it up to the point and let's Shay Weber just spam point shots.

And, you know, that's a low efficiency strategy and it's suboptimal. in this case, that's not what they're doing and it's still not getting the results that you'd expect. Yeah, early in the season, I think one of the biggest issues that they had was Chris Weidman was the guy on their number one power play. And I like Chris Weidman as like a person, teammate kind of thing, but he's lost a step in his skating at this point where he doesn't have like the elusive quality that you need from a player who's manning the blue line on the power play. and he's not offensively creative enough to like figure out a way around that.

And he doesn't have a shot. So teams don't really have to respect his shot, but you don't really want him shooting anyway, but you want teams to back off a little bit in case the guy can release, at least like a wrist or something, like I'm thinking like Klingberg, who can walk the line and just like float one in top corner. And he doesn't really have that.

So he couldn't evade guys. So Caulfield would end up getting really close to him to make sure that they can make a quick pass and then Coffield could kind of strafe down but because they were so close, the goalie's not really moving that much and so like there's no real one-timer option and then either Suzuki was going to try to feed

through the middle and find Coffield that way which you know you're passing through three sticks at least. Right. And it just, it didn't function. And then they switched to Mike Hoffman there. Hoffman's not a natural guy there because he's nervous about making a mistake

and it going behind him. They tried Drew in there. a bit better, but Druen was like indecisive a little bit because he's not the most confident player right now. Once they tried Kirby Doc on that top unit, things started to change and they're a little bit better now. They still haven't quite figured it out, but they've moved Suzuki into the middle now. And Doc is either on the wing or up top.

And that allows, when Doc's on the on the half boards there, he can go to Suzuki for a one timer or go straight through to Caulfield or Suzuki can like stop it and like confuse guys. guys go over to Coffield for the one-timer. So it's created two really great shooting options, whereas before, like for the last year, the only repeated pattern on the power play that they were successful with was Suzuki would kind of go outside the zone until the defenders would forget about him. And then he would come in, get the puck at the blue line on the pass and just drive straight in and beat a goalie.

And teams just really figured that out this year. And they weren't giving him that option at all. so they've had to figure out something else. Like the ingredients feel like they should work, right? Monahan at the net front, it's a guy that you want on the net front, you know, but there's something missing there. I don't know if it's creativity or that the point hasn't been figured out yet,

but overall, they're missing one key element to that power play to make it successful. Well, I'm not sure if you noticed this. I'm sure you did because you watched these games diligently, and I'm just swooping in from left field to watch an occasional game to pepper the spot. podcast.

The most recent game against the pens, late in the third period, down four, three. They had a power play. And they rolled out the five forward unit. Yep. And scored a goal. Yep. And they've been doing the five forwards for most of the season, actually. And you love to see it.

Yeah, you do love to see it. And the creativity there should come. I feel like it's one of those things where it might take a little bit of time for guys to wrestle with it. But in November, they've actually been okay. Right. And part of that's, you know, things normalizing a little bit. I think they were shooting like 1% on the power play kind of thing.

But I think they're at 27% in November over the last six games, which is, you know, decent clip. They're not the Dallas Stars, but they're getting there. Yeah. Yeah, they are getting there. I mean, I think, you know, dealing with this in the market here in Vancouver, the outlook for the team in general. We were talking kind of a bit about the vibes and sort of the found money approach of it. But I think just when you compare what this HAB's organization looked like and felt

like at this time last year compared to where they're at now, I think a big part of it is embracing your reality and then having a logical plan and showing your fan base that you're willing to execute that plan. And rather than just being kind of stuck in that, the mud and in the middle and which is the least favorable place you want to be in NHL hierarchy. And so I just, that's what I keep coming back to when I watch these games. You can't really shake that feeling of, all right, this is, this is fun to watch. Regardless of the result here, there's something to watch for, something to cheer for. Kind of you can see the light of the end of the tunnel on terms of what this is going to look like.

And there might be some ups and downs along the way. but I think you really can't understate that the value in having something to latch onto like that as opposed to, you know, mistakenly thinking that, oh, we can know, if we just keep trying to jam this square peg into a round hole, things will work out for us. And then when you're near the bottom of the league being like, oh, where did, where did things go wrong? I couldn't have seen this coming. And so I really think just embracing that reality has done such a, such a massive, it's been such a massive success from like a PR perspective and like a perception perspective of selling this product to people.

Yeah, 100%. And I feel like things have fallen into place for them, you know, whether you could say it's lucky as well because, you know, things can change on the drop, at the drop of a hat. And, you know, shooting percentage does what it does. Things can go wild one way or the other. But the fact that this early season success has been led by Suzuki, Doc Coffield. on defense, Jordan Harris, Caden Gouli, Arborzacai, those young players being the driving force of everything, like the vibes are immaculate, obviously, but would they be at that same spot

with the same record if it was like, Yel L. Armia has 10 goals. I mean, people would be talking about the trade value, sure. Yes. Yeah. But like, it was Hoffman, Daddanov, Armia, Duran doing it. They would be talking about the trade deadline for sure, but it wouldn't be as much fun because it would be like, well, why does Coffield only have one? What's going on with Suzuki? Can you not handle the pressure of being captain? There would be those narratives to battle. But instead, you've got a 20-year-old defenseman in Caden Gully playing first pair of minutes.

And yeah, he's totally overwhelmed as he's learning the NHL game, getting throttled defensively for sure. But if you look at the eye test, he looks good out there. And David Sovart is definitely the weak link on that pairing. You know, Joel Edmondson has been the weak link between him Jack Guy. Jack I has some defensive reeds that he needs to adjust. One thing that you need to learn in the, I think in the NHL is like stick placement,

where oftentimes he's like skating back on a back check with a stick in the year, which frankly was an issue with Shea Weber late in his career as well on two on ones. He would have a stick in the year. I never understood how a player is so good and defensive so frustrating. I know.

Yeah, would make a mistake like that. But I think that's something that you can learn at a young age. And Jordan Harris has went from, you know, a timid guy who showed flashes of offense last year and a good transition player to this year being very physical, extremely well composed and arguably the Canadian's best defenseman this season, him and Jonathan Kovacevich, who they picked up on waivers, have been by far their best defense

pairing. It's not even close. And I know they're not playing the minutes that Gulli and Savard are, but just incredible results for them so far. Well, yeah, and the thing I'd say about Jacques, as well as, like, you know, Part of learning to play, especially that position in the NHL, is also kind of picking your spot sometimes too in terms of you don't necessarily have to go full blast, just, you know, asserting yourself every single time. And I think as a result, he's kind of taken some

penalties, which have hurt his value in terms of what he's contributing to the haves, which I think is going to come with time and experience and also feeling certainty of being established in the NHL as opposed to feeling like he needs to go out there every shift. and if he doesn't sort of stick up for himself and his teammates and play that way, he's going to lose his job, right? Like I think that's going to come with the territory as well. Yeah. And he had a quote a couple games ago that was talking about how he felt like every game was

a tryout for him, right? Like he didn't take anything for granted. And that's good and bad, right? Like you're saying, he feels like he needs to go out there and prove himself every game. And it's great to have that attitude in a positive way, but it can get you in trouble as well. And I feel like there's also been some situations and it's not like this is. you know, biased against Jack Eye or the Canadians in any way.

But I feel like anytime you get a guy who establishes himself as a very scary person to fight very earlier in their career, there's been a few times where there's been like scuffles and the rest are like, you just go. You're in the penalty box now because we're not going to have you beat up like David Perron or something. Yeah. We don't want to have to pause the game to clean up blood off the ice surface. So please just leave.

Yeah. Right. Like there was an issue with Marco Rossi who shoved Slavkovsky. it was, you know, not even that hard, but Slavkovs, he wasn't paying attention. He was just off balance, yeah. I think it was off balance, head into the boards and the whatever decision Dean Evanson decided to make to put Rossi back out there in like the last minute of the game while Jack I was on the ice was an interesting one, but Jack I went after him.

He just like he didn't really try to hurt him, I don't think, but he kind of just took him and like tossed him to the ice and the rest were like, now get out of here. And there's a lot of that was Jack I where you're just like, is. Does it matter that much? The game was already lost, but yeah, maybe just don't do it. Like get in a scrum after a whistle where refs don't call penalties. All right, Andrew, is there any other stuff on the HABs here that you feel like while we're here and while we're doing this, this HAB's deep depth on the PEOCast that you feel like we need to get to?

You know, we've talked about the power play. We've talked about the top line. We've talked about the coaching effect, kind of the organizational outlook of balancing, riding this surprisingly fun wave this season while still keeping an eye on the future and acknowledging that getting a top pick in a class that's this elite, especially at the top, is a must almost for them to take that next step. Is there any other stuff that you feel like we need to get to?

Well, I mean, we could talk about where there have been pitfalls for sure, like the special teams. We can talk about the power play. The penalty kill is about it. I think it might be even worse than the power play last time I checked, but the goaltenders are holding it together. I think that's been the underrated part of this season

starting out so positively is that these young players have had the benefit of Alan and Montemot giving them spectacular performances. I think the Canadian penalty kill is actually pretty decent in terms of like the actual goals allowed, but the expected goals allowed. Right. It doesn't look great, but the goaltenders have been there, right? And I think it's why we look at like the Buffalo Sabres, right? and when they tore everything down to do their rebuild,

they tore it down too far. Yeah. And I think it's such a tough line to figure out how many veterans do we need to get rid of so that we're bad enough to get a good pick, but also good enough so that the young players who are already in our organization, don't have their confidence and their love of the game

completely destroyed. And obviously we don't know where the Canadians are going to finish this season. I would assume bottom five to 10, that area. But right now, it seems like they've struck a good balance here. And the goalies who will regress a little bit are good enough to keep the team honest and the kids supported. And they've got some veteran presence.

And I guess one of the thing that I would want to shout out is Martin St. Louis, one of the things he's consistently talked about and we mentioned before was putting guys in a position where they're comfortable to succeed, right? And Mike Hoffman obviously struggled like hell last year. It was awful, awful season for him. This year started much the same way. His first six games, I believe he had four shots, something like that. And when you're Mike Hoffman and you're not even getting shots, you're not contributing

very much. Right. But to the chagrin of many people watching the Canadians who were frustrated with him, St. Louis just kept giving Hoffman reps, kept putting him with skilled players, kept trying to find line combinations that would work for Mike Hoffman. And then all of a sudden, he stumbled on the, thanks to actually the Josh Anderson's suspension. He stumbled onto this combination of Gallagher, Doc, or not Doc, sorry, Gallagher

Devorak and Hoffman. And Gallagher shoots all the time. So Mike Hoffman started going to the middle of the ice where the rebounds would go, scored two goals in a game. Now he was on a three-game goal streak. And he seems to be confident, smiling during the game, and all of a sudden he's shooting like crazy and getting goals for it. it's that kind of stuff that I think makes St. Louis such a great coach for a building team,

not even a rebuild team, but a building team because he's trying to get everyone involved. And I know there's a lot of Canadians fans right now who are frustrated with Evgeny Dadanov because he started the season looking abysmal. He looked so slow and so unengaged, but his underlying numbers still look fantastic because he's been mega sheltered. But the last couple of games after coming back from injury, He's looked a little bit more engaged and he continues to get reps with skilled players because they want him to find his game and break out.

We know that he can score from his past. No, we'll see in another 10, 15 games if he's just washed. But I think St. Louis' commitment to getting the most out of players, whether they be rookies or veterans, is really fun to watch. Well,

you made a great point there a second ago. Like, I think it's fine for young players. to fail because not not because there's an adversity mumbo-jumbo or making them tougher, but I think it shows you what you need to get better at, right? Especially if you're failing at a specific thing in terms of what you're doing on the ice, you can go back and wash the tape and evaluate and then get me better for it, right? And so I think that's totally fine, but you do reach a point of kind of diminishing returns

where if it gets so bad, it's kind of like a soul-crushing experience where you're just dreading showing up to the rank and getting your butt kicked again. And you're like, oh, this is going to be a miserable 60 minutes. I can't wait to get out of here. And that's not good for building good habits because you want to be enjoying playing professional hockey. It's a great privilege. And you want to, it's not just a job.

It's something that, like, you want to build your life around, right? And so I think finding that balance for young players is huge. And so you're right, regardless of the results, as long as you're not getting shalacked eight to two every night. and struggling to get 20 shots on goal as a team, it's, it's, you're headed down a good road,

even if the losses do start coming. Yeah, 100%. And I think playing a fun style helps too, right? Yeah, not having to, like, you could be playing in close games,

but if your entire strategy is to block shots and maybe get like a breakaway off of a turnover at some point and try to equal the game that way, I mean, it's worked for the Canadians in the past, like the 2010 playoffs, right? Whereas like,

we're going to have five guys. blocking shots and hopefully somebody like Dominic Moore gets a turnover at the blue line and scores in game seven and they win. But I think over a long period of time, that kind of play isn't sustainable for success. And we've seen even players who appear to be unbreakable in terms of what they can be in the NHL falter with continued like failure, right? Like Jack Eichael and Buffalo, Ryan O'Reilly and Buffalo. You know, I think there were some players in New Jersey who were close to it at the beginning of this year

when they lost their first two, even though they looked great. And then all of a sudden they've won nine straight and everybody looks amazing. But having that continued failure for too long and not having the support structure for those young players with veterans, it really, it doesn't work.

You know, we've seen, how many rebuilds have we seen where, you know, you get a great player and they, just want out immediately or it's just not going to work. You know, how long is Keller going to wait in Arizona before the coyotes are competitive? It seems like half of his career, right? And it's tough to justify that for the fans, but also for your players. Yeah.

You've got to be able to turn things around relatively quickly. Well, I guess Marty St. Louis really is the exception here because he's like the highly successful offensively oriented skill player who. didn't have it come easy to him, right? He had to work for everything he got and he had to kind of establish that mentality of being a grinder and the hardest working guy while also being the most skilled guy on the ice, right? And basically you have to wait his turn to be able to show that skill. So you kind of check all of those boxes. But I do wonder, the NHL has such a problem with just basically recycling old head coaches who have been relatively successful once upon a time, even if that happened to be 10, 15, 20 years ago.

just because you can only seemingly hire one out of 35 guys who are qualified for some reason. Do you think we'll see teams, especially rebuilding teams, embrace the idea of bringing in a former player who hasn't been out of the game too long that can relate to the players that might not necessarily have experience or be thought of as being an exes and those expert tactician. but it sees the game and thinks about the game well enough to at least put those young players in a position to succeed. Do you think that's going to become more of a thing as all of these rave reviews keep coming in about San Luis? I hope so for players who are deep thinkers, right?

Like I think as much as things went awful during the playoffs for him, like Andrew Burnett did a great job taking over last year out of nowhere with Florida. And they continued to play, you know, Kenville's system and excelled all year long. until the playoffs, of course, where they fell apart. But we'll blame that on them losing 10 to 2, I think, to the Canadians in the last game of the season. Yeah, that broke them, yeah. Clearly, that's when none of their players were in the lineup, that's what broke the team. But, yeah, I hope that we get to see that because I feel like we've had some failed opportunities with former players in the past. I feel like more of them are more suited to coaching than management.

Like, there's no reason why the way Wayne Gretzky sees the game shouldn't have translated to being a good head coach unless he, had like no support from his assistance right that's going to be an important thing i think you just couldn't communicate it that's probably true too like he's not a great communicator that's pretty evident from his tv appearances no offense i mean i i think it just comes like i think it honestly it did come much easier to him especially from a younger age than it did marty st louis i think it's tougher for for a player like that to put themselves in the shoes of a struggling player who's trying to figure out the ropes on the fly at the hl level that's true maybe greets he should be a skills coach. Maybe that's what he should try out. But I mean, obviously he's going to

continue being a commentator. But having a player who's been through those experiences and seeing the ups and downs has to be an advantage. And I think one thing we'll probably see as the Canadians go from rebuild to trying to compete is we might see more experienced players take the roles of the assistant coaches just because, you know, Alex Burroughs, no offense to him, obviously great player, but hasn't done a lot on the power play so far. And Robida, who's their defensive coach, a rookie coach, right? So it's just, you know, transitioning from being supportive and becoming a rebuilding team to being a competitive team.

You might want a little bit more X's and O's in there as much as St. Louis talks about how they don't have systems. They have, what do you call it, like set pieces? or concepts. That's what he says. He doesn't run a system. He has concepts for individual, like, plays that happen. Right.

So they might go from more of a loose concept to more of a system as they get better. But I know that St. Louis has, like, a big book with, like, a five-year plan of how he's going to develop this team. So maybe he's a one-off. And this is, like, almost like a Ted Lassow situation. Wow. I'm excited to see how that five-year plan develops. Andrew, this is a blast.

We're going to be doing a home and home. I'm going to be on your show next Tuesday after a Havs game. So I'm looking forward to that. Let the listeners know about where they can check that out, what they can expect, all the stuff you've been working on lately. Yeah, obviously, unless the site dies, thanks to Elon, you can follow me on Twitter at Andrew Berkshire.

You can check out, you follow me on Instagram, the same ad as well if Twitter does die. And check out YouTube.com slash SDPN. You can find playlists for Game Over Montreal or Game Over NHL in total, where we have, all Canadian teams covered by the end of this week because the game over Winnipeg will launch

on Thursday and we're very excited about that after a unwanted delay to the start of the season for them. But yeah, we have post games for every Canadian NHL team. It's going to continue to expand as time goes on. And it's really fun. They run 35 to 45 minutes. And it's just fans coming together talking about the game. You can be interactive in the chat.

It's super fun. Awesome, man. Well, I'm looking forward to being on with you next Tuesday and chatting more about the HABS. Thanks for taking the time to come on and chat here in the PDOCAST. Thank you to the listeners for listening to us. If you enjoyed what you heard, please help us out by smashing that five-star button wherever you listen to the podcast.

And we will be back soon with more here on the HockeyPedocat streaming on the Sportsnet radio network.