The Hockey PDOcast - The Devils Numbers Game, the Future of the Defense Position, and Most Improved Players

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Harman Dayal to talk about decisions the Devils are going to have to make for the long term, the future of the defense position and the skills required for it, and how guys like Dylan Samberg and Kent Johnson have levelled up this season. 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 Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey Pedioc. My name's Dimitra Filippovich and joining me here in studio, my good buddy, Harmon Dile. What's going on, man? How are you? I'm doing good. We got a fun show here today with you in studio. We're going to take some mailbag questions. You recently wrote at the Athletic about the most improved players. It was a list that I may as well have co-authored because it's everyone that I've been talking about so highly on the show this year. We'll sprinkle in some takes from last night's pair of evening games with the Avs, Devils, and Kings Canucks as part of our conversation. Let's start with this mailback question from the PDOCS Discord.

It's from Devils fan, Sad Pitt asks. With Seamus Casey's play this year, albeit in a small sample size, will the devils be forced into a decision between Casey and Shimon Nemitz? Should they move on from one of these guys this summer while their stock is still high, or we're wading it out and having one of these guys as a seventh defenseman be the better option? Yeah, my immediate thought was, and Kinex fans might not like me bringing this up, but Quinn Hughes has two years left on his contract beyond this season, and you know that if you're Vancouver, there's no scenario in which if it's the end of next season and you're trying to extend Quinn Hughes, like there's no way you're going to risk the possibility of him walking as a free agent.

and we know how appealing the idea of potentially playing with both of his brothers in New Jersey would be. So if I'm the devils, I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that Quinn might be a player that you could target in the summer of 2026 if extension talks with the Canucks are going sideways. And in that case, you could preserve an asset like Nemich to go out, and make a play for Quinn. Yeah, to get out ahead of it rather than sort of waiting to see what happens in the intermediate time. I'm glad you just hit the nail in the head there right away, right off the bat.

I was going to kind of sprinkle that in later and maybe it would be a bit more coy about. You were very transparent about I was looking at the books for the Devils in particular in the way they've structured some of these recent contracts that they signed UFA's to, especially last summer. And that summer of 2027 when Quinn Hughes is an uninterstricted free agent, they have so much money. coming off the books, right? Brennan Dillon's four million, Andre Pallat, six million, which was obviously assigned a couple summers ago, Dawson Mercer's $4 million bridge, Stefan Nason's 2.75, that frees up a ton of cast space to go along with the fact that everyone is going to have

cap space because the cap is projected to be 113.5 million that summer. So that all of a sudden becomes a very interesting sort of timeline or framework for the devils to be working around. I assume for them, they're in an interesting spot right now, right? Because they're what, like 12th or so in the league in point percentage. After a bit of a dip, they were in the top 10 previously. They're very live this season to make some noise come to postseason, yet they obviously have a young core with a bunch of assets, and I think they want to scale the timeline to not just this postseason or even next season,

but the next five years or so, especially while they have Jack Hughes on such a team-friendly contract that he signed, right? So that's something they're going to consider, and I think it's important for them to time this outright and keep their powder dry and have enough ammo to jump if that opportunity presents itself, be very flexible and malleable in terms of what they got going on. I want to talk to you a little bit about, you know, this question asked about Nemitz, and I think understandably people are quite disappointed with the season he's had, right?

I think in general when a young player not only like stagnates in terms of like not improving year-over-year at this point in their career, but especially in his case, the way he has this year takes such a visible step back. it's a big time buzz kill, right? I think everyone expects when a rookie shows the promise he did last year, and he was phenomenal. Like for everything that was wrong with that team, all the blue line injuries, he stepped in. He led the team in 5-1-5 usage upon arriving and looked great doing so.

I thought he was even better than Luke Hughes last year as their top defenseman. He's really struggled. He's only played 12 games this year with some of these recent injuries, especially to Siegenthallor. They tried to bring him up and give him some minutes. He played a couple games recently against, I believe, Vegas, in Dallas where he looked like a step behind and a bit lost out there and was getting caved in in his 5-1-5 minutes.

I do want to add the context, though, that he suffered this pretty gnarly injury in late August while playing for Slovakia in qualifying games. And the team underwent a lot of turnover, right? They brought in a new coach in Sheldon Keefe. They changed their system and the way they want to play, especially in terms of like the rush game and being better defensively and not bleeding so much the way they did last. year a lot of personnel change right they brought in a lot of new guys and so for a young player

especially at that position being a step behind that early on in the process i feel like makes this year almost a bit of a wash for me um so he showed me enough last year i'm not sure if you agree but he showed me enough last year that i would not be panicking by any means like i would be very inclined to just give him a full off season to reset and get back at it next year because this clearly isn't the player he is, I don't think last year was some sort of a fluke. Like to step in as a 20-year-old defenseman the way that he did, especially a right shot at that is such an intriguing and luxury item that you don't want to just panic after this small of a sample size where he struggled.

I fully agree. I was really impressed with the way that he was playing last year. It just seemed like the level of poise he had with the puck, how smooth he was as a player offensively, but also being defensively reliable enough that you could count on him in pretty high leverage usage. As you said, you don't do that. You don't fluke into that as a 20-year-old

and you never sort of reach that level again. We know that the development for young players isn't always linear. There are going to be bumps in the journey. So many factors, as you mentioned, going into this season that can kind of explain why he's taken a step back. And even from monetizing him as a trade asset perspective, you don't want to do that

when his value is, when his stock is dropped, right? So I'm with you. I'm a believer in his talent. I'm a believer in his IQ and how smooth a player he is. I think he'll get back on track next year. Yeah, he was doing so much stuff in terms of like high level manipulation last year that you don't just accidentally do. Like that's clearly still there. I don't even know if the stock has dropped so much for him necessarily. Maybe in terms of like, like Sheldon Keith clearly doesn't trust him at this point and is reluctant to use him. And so maybe like internally. earlier within the fan base, people are left with a bit of a sour taste. But I think league-wide, you look at as an example of, you know, a guy he's always going

to be closely linked to David Yerechek, considering they were in the same class. There was a big debate between the two. Nemitz goes second, Yerichick goes sixth. We just saw Yurichick this season in arguably a much worse situation in terms of his stock where he wasn't playing. He was publicly and vocally frustrated. Blue Jackets didn't have necessarily that much leverage because of how it was unfolding. they trade him for what, a first, second, third, fourth, and a defensive prospect just to kind of

show you how valuable young right shot defensemen like this are. And for all the struggles, we've already, like we haven't seen anything from Eurocheck at this level. We've already seen last year from Nemitz. And even in their AHL time, Nemitz has been the more productive player. So I imagine the market for him is still quite immense. And that's why I'd be holding on tight for as long as I possibly could. I do love, you know, to talk about, you know, to high in Seamus Casey here. I love Seamus Casey as a prospect. He was dynamite in Michigan in the NCAA. I will note though, he scored four goals on nine shots on goal so far early in his NHL career. I think he's also getting like a 983 save percentage behind him or something at five-on-five.

And those types of things I think will make everyone look very, very good when you're getting that type of percentage luck. So not that he's obviously not a big factor here and an intriguing piece moving forward, but I feel like reacting and kind of switching gears and being like, all right, well, we're going to keep Casey and we're going to try to leverage Nemitz into something that can help us now, I think, would be a very short-sighted mistake. Yeah, and remind me again, what is Casey's approximate height and weight? I don't know. He's listed at 5'10, but those are like, all the official heights are dating-app heights. I was going to say, I feel like he's, like, when I watch him, he seems like a pretty undersized guy. And when you look at the way that Tom Fitzgerald has, over this past off season, tried to mold a,

real identity for his team, right? Like, he went out and got hyper-competitive, sort of, like, physical guys, like, when you look at Dylan, when you look at Nason. Yeah, Carter, Pesci, Colisevich, yeah. 100%. It was almost like on-the-fly rebranding the identity of this devil's team to where in the past, the criticism of them was, okay, they create a lot off the rush, but they can be pushed to the outside.

They're not very big. They maybe lack, you know, some size up front and on the back end. And when I think about constructing that moving forward, especially for a guy like Casey, where when you've got Luke Hughes and Dougie Hamilton, who are already going to take on a lot of the prime offensive opportunities and power play side of things, even though Casey is a really promising young talent, I wonder if, like, contending teams typically like to, like, I wonder if Casey might get caught in the in between, where he's not maybe going to get the opportunity to be a top four guy.

And when contending teams try to build out their third pair, they often prefer more meat and potatoes, like more physical defensive defensemen, guys who can kill penalties. So I wonder if Casey, if there's a realistic fit or path for him to earn a high leverage role with the Devils team moving forward,

especially because we're also still so high on that image. We are. And I think that the numbers game on the back end for the Devils is why this question is interesting. And I think some to consider moving forward, right? Because they've got, what, 14. $1.5 million committed on the right side to Dougie Hamilton and Brett Peschi for at least the next three seasons. And so that takes up a bunch of right side minutes. And there's kind of this log jam,

which is why this question was posed. I want to talk to you about the devils and spin it forward a little bit as well because they're at this weird spot right now where you mentioned kind of this identity shift that they had in the off season and the types of players, this front office targeted to try to alleviate some of the pressure they faced last year and change their profile a little bit. And we saw the dividends of that paid, especially in that middle part of the season, kind of around December, right? I think I had you on at the time. They were in the middle of that stretch where they were just suffocating teams defensively.

They were holding everyone they played to 12 to 16 shots or something and just weren't giving anything up. Jacob Marksner was healthy at the time. They were unbelievable defensively. I do have some concerns about going too far in that direction, though, because you watch them play right now. And manufacturing goals, especially at 5-on-5, has been so onerous for them. pretty much the entirety of everything they create is being siphoned through the Jack Hughes,

Jesper Brad combo, and they're just not getting anything from anyone else. And now all of a sudden you look up, I was very fixated on this jockeying for a position between them and the hurricanes for whole mice in that two, three matchup in the first round and how fun that would be. All of a sudden, the bluejackets, a team we're going to talk about later on, is only six points back of them with two games in hand, and is all of a sudden very live in that conversation as well. their upcoming stretch is pretty difficult. They're playing next four games before the deadline at Utah, at Vegas, at Dallas, and then home against Winnipeg.

And so the position they're in in the standings and how it looks in the metro, all of a sudden by the time you come to March 7th, I feel like could look very, very tight and very interesting. And so from that perspective, I imagine there's a bit of pressure on them, I guess, or incentive to sort of figure this out right now and try to fix some of what's going on, but also keeping such a, like, a long. a long-term distant view as well and not necessarily overcommitting to just this year. Yeah, I obviously love the forward nucleus that they have with Hughes, Brad, and Heeshier.

The issue is there's, I don't love their depth up front. And I think they've got some dead weight with Andre Palat on the top line. You and I were mentioning right before we recorded. It's amazing to see the chemistry that Hughes and Brad have and how many plays they make off each other. and then to have Pilate as the third wheel, he's so clearly dragging those guys down. And, I mean, Tatar has sort of been deadweight this year. I believe their bottom six hasn't been very effective this year.

I'm not a huge fan of, you know, like with Eric Hala taking a bit of step back this year, and they've been leaning on Dowling. They're a bit weak in the three four C type of range. it feels like there are a couple forwards away from really being a team that I look at top to bottom and going, okay, they've got a lot of boxes checked here. It feels like they've got holes. I mean, they're down a 20th in 5-1-5 scoring rate this year, which is behind teams like the Islanders and Flyers just to give you some context.

The last month, kind of sandwiching the Four Nations break, they've played nine games. They've scored 25 goals in that stretch. Jack Hughes has been on the ice for 20 of them. That means that they've scored five total goals in 357 minutes. in the last nine games where Jack Hughes hasn't been out there and that's why it's been so interesting to see the discourse around Hughes. Some of it is certainly not including those games

because of his performance in the Four Nations but kind of talking about his capability and him missing on chances and stuff like that and not producing necessarily playing for TV USA and then you watch these games, the game they played recently against Dallas where they wound up losing at home. He scores both their goals.

He like created every single chance they had. I tweeted after the Aves game last night the horse drawing meme where like the start of it is just immaculate. It's all this pristine passing between Hughes and Brat where they're carving up the defense and like four or five intricate passing plays and then it winds up on Platt Stick

and is just like kind of hastily scribbled together and winds up foiling the opportunity. By my count, they have five forwards this year with a five-on-fives on ice goals rate of over 2.5. Jack Hughes, Jasper, Brad, Nico Hishier, Andre Palat, who has played 80% of his minutes with Jack Hughes. In the 145 minutes he's played without Jack Hughes, they've scored two goals with him on the ice, and Stefan Nason, who's played about half of his minutes with Nico Hishier,

and he's down to 2.1 in his minutes away from his year. So that kind of speaks to a point you're making of the top six carrying such a heavy burden offensively for this team, and I get the logic of diversifying your talent and skill set and not necessarily just having a team of 12 rush guys who are just getting into track meets back and forth and getting into some of the trouble they had last year, but they need some help there clearly, right? And so I'm doing this trades we'd like to see show next Sunday with with Janice and Jaffresh. And I assume we're going to have a lot of a lot of trade proposals for the devil's adding not only a legitimate top six winger, but maybe even the third line center, as you mentioned, to kind of alleviate some of these, some of these pressure

points that they have in their lineup. And it's kind of unfortunate because I don't love a lot of the forward options that are available on this. I mean, I shouldn't even say forward, just like players in general. If you're looking to contend this year and add, whether it's top four defensemen, whether it's, you know, extra. I mean, I guess with guys like Frederick and Jake Evans, if you're in the market, if you're a contender for like bottom six, that is not what they need. But I'm not talking about, you know, devil specifically. But if you're looking for impact, like top of the lineup, like a top six sniper, like there just aren't a lot of those types of guys left on the market. Yeah, there's some interesting guys, especially.

in Seattle, I feel like there's a few that could really help them quite a little. I've been seeing the McCann. Like, I've been seeing people throwing around McCann, but like the thing I've thought is he's cost control and he's got term left. And it doesn't seem like Seattle's rebuilding. So, like, what's the case from Seattle's perspective to sell McCann? Yeah. No, I think that's fair. I think McCann, I mean, I think he's a dream fit for Winnipeg, for example, to play with Perfetti and Eilers.

I was thinking more so like Oliver Brookesrand, who I believe is one more year after this. one. Sure. And at his age, isn't necessarily a part of the future. Yeah. For Seattle and also for Tom Fitzgerald, it would check so many boxes in that he's obviously a massive improvement

offensively as a shooter to convert on some of these chances that he used in Brad create, but also still has some of that play driving, connective elements to his game. So he's not necessarily just a pure offensively oriented player. So I feel like a guy would that be very appealing. I mean, I don't know if they want to take on the term because of just what we talked about,

where I think they want to keep their books pretty clean heading into that summer of 2027 a couple years away. But man, like a Ricard Raquel, for example, on this team would be incredible. There's some options to get creative, not necessarily pure rentals, but guys that I feel like,

I mean, the bar they have to clear for an improvement here that we're talking about is so low to just improve on 34-year-old Andre Pallad and 34-year-old Thomas Thatar. And I feel like I don't necessarily want to see them go all in, but I feel like they're also doing themselves at a service if they squander some of these opportunities, that these guys are creating because Brad and Hughes are just playing at such a high level right now.

So you don't want to take that for granted either and say, all right, well, this doesn't matter because with those guys playing this well, if you add a third piece, they can all of a sudden convert on some of this stuff, you're looking at like a legitimate game-changing line that come the postseason is going to be a nightmare to match up against. Yeah, especially because, I mean, how many times have we heard people referencing how wide open the east is? Yeah. Right. It's right there for the taking. All right. I got two more questions that actually tell you. tie in to a lot of what we hit on here.

So let's get to them because it all makes sense just from context. Favella asks, do most GMs and coaches still value, quote-unquote, big, mean defensemen, or have they changed their philosophy at all when it comes to defensive Dmen after seeing a smaller player like Gus Foresling shut down ability in the past couple post seasons? For me, it's not so much the mean part necessarily. I think, look, GMs and coaches are always going to love the, like, third pair, hard to play against Cross check to the lower back for 60. Yeah, especially because a lot of contending teams,

they load up with like heavy, gritty bottom six guys. And so GMs are thinking, okay, come the Western or Eastern Conference funnel, we want to have big heavy third pair D who can match up against the other teams, bottom six and win those greedy battles down low and in front of the end and those types of things. But overall, when I look at the trend of, you know, size and how it relates to defensemen and postseason. It's not so much the big and mean part as it is.

I think there are advantages you get related to reach and wingspan when you're a bigger defenseman that just make it so much easier to defend. It helps you in every aspect, especially when, and this is the key, right? It's not just chasing size for the sake of size. It's if you're 6'2, 6'4 foot 3, 6'4 and you can skate well, And you've got like a decent level of intelligence defensively. You've gone an advantage in so many capacities defensively. First of all, first of all, when it comes to defending the rush, the range for a guy who is that big, that type of wingspan and can move well,

he's going to be able to gap up and choke plays off and eliminate time and space so effectively in the neutral zone. In specific in the D zone when it's, you know, cycle situations, the passing lanes, a shooting lens that you're able to clog up because your limbs are just that long and your stick is that disruptive, it's a huge asset. And this is where you kind of have to, like the huge caveat is you've got to have other skills

in your repertoire. Because when you do think of, yeah, like, Forzling is a great example of a guy who isn't very big, who's a shutdown ace. But then there are, like, we saw what Jacob Slavin did in the Four Nations and how he was just always in the way.

And when you look at recent cup winners, they have had you know some maybe not Florida necessarily but when you look at how Tampa's Blue Line was built in Vegas like they had a lot of size and mobility on the Blue Line I mean yeah even Florida did it

beyond Foursling like just looking at how much space a guy like Nico Mikula can occupy with his reach the way Montour with his skating was closing stuff off and even OEL they certainly had some of those guys even though they were different body types I mean You mentioned Forzing and Slave and sort of how having different skills in your repertoire.

Obviously, that's what makes those guys so great as not only the ability to use their stick to disrupt and move, but also they're not necessarily taking that much off the table offensively either. Not my favorite player type, but I think you could see the impact someone like a Brandon Carlo had last postseason, for example, where he was giving Toronto's forwards a lot of trouble by eliminating time and space in the offensive zone whenever they would set up to shoot. right? So you'd go back and watch every Austin Matthews or Willie Nealander shot attempt and where they'd normally be able to step into it and pick their spot. Maybe all of a sudden there's a stick kind of rushing it and either changing the lane or kind of disrupting it and just throwing off their timing a little bit and you sort of see

the value on that. Now he's such a black hole offensively that I'm sure we're going to hear his name come up around the trade deadline and I kind of worry about whether he's taking too much off the table at one end and whether it's worth that sacrifice. But I think this brings up a bigger conversation about defensemen and maybe something you and I have spoken about previously and how we sort of how difficult it is to to evaluate them because you have two types of kind of profiles right you have guys with sort of like discernible um identifiable skill sets whether it's size or reach or skating or puck moving ability or or whatever you want to say and then you have this type of defenseman that fall into a bit of a blind spot where they do a lot of things pretty well, but they don't have something that a coach can kind of latch on who is being like, all right, this is why this guy's going to play in a premium role for us. Yet their teams just win their minutes when they're on the ice. And you never really know what to do with those guys because on their current team,

they're succeeding, they're out shooting, outscoring the opposition. But it's not necessarily as cut and dry as being like, all right, well, if this guy's a free agent or this guy is a trade of that in acquisition, we bring him in and we change the variables around them and we can just replicate those same results. We're going to talk more about Dylan Sandberg later, and I feel like he fits that as well, right, where he's been such a perfect core piece of what the Jets have been doing this season, but he also doesn't necessarily have like one single thing where I'd point to it and be like, all right, well, this is what you know you're going to get. He just does everything well across the board. Those types of players are, I think, a bit more difficult to identify as targets for a

potentially acquiring team, because what's that going to look like when you change their environment? Yeah, especially because there's so many examples of like you referenced Sandberg. He was in a third pair role last year. You had no idea before the season. Yeah, you could look at parts of his game and be intrigued that, okay, we are hopeful that he can thrive in a top four role. And certainly when you go back to the success that he had in the NCAA, there was like credence and like credible evidence to think that, okay, he has potential. but it is so difficult to look at a defenseman in one context and be like if we change all the variables in terms of usage, matchups, his D partner, the quality of the team around him, like how is this defenseman going to perform? It's exceptionally difficult because you end up with some guys like Sandberg that when they're in a sort of third pair capacity and they're winning their minutes, you scale their minutes and matchups up and they're still successful.

But then there are so many examples of guys that- A full graveyard of them, man. Yeah, who, like, have all the fancy analytics and sheltered minutes. And then, and people will criticize, you know, the coaches and be like, oh, like, why is this coach not giving this guy enough minutes? And then he gets the minutes and he gets crushed. Yeah, there's also, Trance brought up this interesting point on our show on Sunday. You know, he did this outrageous sort of humble brag where he's like, oh, I was chatting my pal Ray Ferraro. and then I was like, okay, this is a great start.

But he made a really salient point where Ray was talking about how, you know, there was a time where the big guys in the league were, there was a tradeoff, right, where like there was a lot of size, but then there was a massive skill and skating drop-off on those guys. And so there was a hidden edge or a competitive advantage for smaller, faster players because they just possessed the skill that those other guys didn't, right? now you're getting to a point where you're getting all these freaks entering the league that have the size, but also the speed and the scale and ability to operate off the rush and all this stuff.

We're still not at full capacity there. I think like five years from now or ten years from now when a next generation comes in, we probably will be. And this will be an even bigger point of emphasis for us. But for the time being, it's getting to that point where there isn't necessarily that much of a tradeoff, right? And so come the postseason when it's more difficult to get out in transition and open space, A lot of the creation is happening down low, below the goal line, where you're cycling up to the point, trying to get in that front position and get tips or rebounds. The dynamic or sort of the, it's changing in terms of how you have to defend, right? And so I'm still not to the point where, like, guys like a Ben Chirot or a Joel Edmondson, I don't think they become that much more valuable in that type of setting.

But you can sort of see why having a skill set like that is something teams desire, especially on like a third pair. if you can use them for PK or a certain situational when you're defending a lead. So I don't know. You have any kind of additional notes on that? I think the important part is just finding the right blend to with some of the pieces you already have on your blue line, where, again, the issue that some teams run into like Vancouver is they overdo it

and then there's a deficiency when it comes to the puck-moving side of it. And of course, they have to address that mid-season on the fly. But, yeah, it's, like, it's interesting because in today's NHL, I think the – you can't get away as much with being, like, purely one-dimensional. Yeah. Whether it's, like, even as an offensive guy and defensively, like, when I look at, you know, teams. teams and coaches and the types of defensemen that they coveted and give the highest usage to, a lot of them can kind of contribute in a lot of different capacities. And like that's another, you know, the thing that sort of stands out as far as this evolution

of how blue lines are kind of built. There's also a risk management element to it as well, right? Where the postseason is such a sprint. Like I feel like over an 82 game sample, you get this massive data pool and in the aggregate all the numbers kind of are equal because it's 82 games worth and a bunch of ice time and a bunch of events. And so just coming out ahead on that and the positive ledger is enough. But in the postseason, it gets so isolated in terms of not every event being equal, right? And so there's certain guys where it's like, I think even the Four Nations, which is obviously a very condensed

tournament, you look at some of the defensive ratings or kind of like underlying numbers for a guy like Jacob Slavin. And if you just purely looked at that, you'd be like, all right, well, he spent a lot of time defending. They were getting outshot with him on the ice. It wasn't necessarily that impressive. But then when you watch it, like the critical plays that he's making to prevent scoring chances and goals are ultimately all that really matters in that sort of a sample where the margins were one goal here or there every time, right? It's not as simple as being like, all right, what's the total here? What's the aggregate? No, you have to actually kind of like analyze play-by- play and be like, all right, well, there was this two-on-one, or there's a three-on-two where

Seth Jarvis is coming down the middle, and he just gets down and blocks a shot and nullifies it, that comes up as a high-danger opportunity for Seth Jarvis and grades poorly on Jacob Slavin. But, man, without him, that probably was a goal against, and he single-handedly erased it. So I feel like that's an important part of this as well. Especially where matchups and head-to-head is so amplified in playoffs. All right, Aram, let's take our break here, and then we come back. We'll jump back in it. We've got another mailback question, and then we're going to talk about a piece that you wrote recently you're listening to the Hockey P.D.O.cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.

All right. We're back here on the Hockey Pedyl. Harm. I got a question for you that's right up your alley. We got Fitzfinnegan asking, remember that time Brock Bessor shot almost 20% and scored 40 goals? Is there any reason that Canucks would consider giving him a long-term deal instead of trading him at this year's deadline? I think the case for keeping Brock, if you're trying to look at it from that lens, would be, this Canucks team over the last half a season or so has been the second worst offensive team in the NHL. Across the board, whether you look at goals scored per game, whether you look at the shots they generated at five-on-five, the expected goals they generated at five-on-five, and when you look at the roster that they have right now, up front, other than Elias Pedersen, Brock Bessor, is the only forward who's ever had a 55-point season in his NHL career.

So this is a Canucks team that is star for scoring. they don't have a ton of elite weapons on the power play, especially with J.T. Miller gone now. And you may look at Besser as a piece that, okay, relative to how much he's going to make it for agency, we feel confident we can replace the skill set. But the issue for the Canucks is for them to take the next step. It's not about replacing one guy's impact.

They've got to add so much more high-end skill to their forward group. So that would be the case if you're trying to push for retaining Besser. but I have my concerns ultimately about actually going out and resigning him for the number that it's going to take. Look, if it's some type of below market extension price, like a seven times seven. Yeah, if he's willing to sign something like that, I'll do it. But if the number is, let's say, an $8 million cap it to eight and a half with max term, seven or eight years, that's a type of contract that I'd be wary of signing for a few reasons.

Number one, with J.T. Miller gone. That's a centerman that Besser had the most success with on this roster. And you even saw this last night. He's playing, it was playing on a line with Pia Suter and Andrew O'Connor because he hasn't necessarily meshed with newcomer Philippaedal. And because while Besser and Pedersen had chemistry together early or early in their respective careers, Over the last two, three years, whenever they have been put together in small samples, they haven't flourished. So do they have the right playmaker to get the most out of Brock who is a terrific player? But ultimately, he can't be the best player on a top six line. He's the type that excels because of how sneaky he is at getting open in the slot, his net front skill.

He needs a high-end playmaker. And that's where J.T. was such a perfect fit where Miller down low and off the cycle is one of the best playmakers in the the NHL, which was a perfect match for the way Besser attacks, who, like, he isn't a fast guy. And so you saw with Heidel, for example, likes to create a lot off the rush, but it wasn't, it was a challenge for Brock to keep up in that way. So, and through his first six seasons as well, before last year's four to goal campaign, Brock between injuries and inconsistency, never hit 30 goals. So I'd be leaning towards not resigning Brock, even though they really need a pleasure.

with a skill set. Yeah, they're 26 in scoring this year. I think even more concerning, they're 28th and expected goals generated in 32nd in slot shots, right? And you kind of talk about that skill set and how starved they are from more Brock Bessers, yet it's difficult

because you just turned 28, right? And so when you're talking 7, 8 years, what's that going to look like? I'm curious for your take on what you think he's going to age like, right? Because on the one hand, I feel like we don't give enough emphasis to the fact that as you age,

your efficiency as a finisher seems to decline, right? Some of the older teams in the league have really experienced that over the past couple years, where you get a bit older, all of a sudden everything is just a half step slower and the efficiency dries up a little bit. The listener pointed out that he nearly shot 20% last year at 19.6. I mean, this year he's still at 17.5, right? Like, he's been, what, 14 or so for his career. So it is above average and a legitimate skill set, yet what that's going to look like

three, four years from now, I think remains to be seen. Our pal Ray Ferraro, speaking of him, was doing the call on last night's game against the Kings, and he brought up a really interesting point about how when Bessor's at his best, he's never going to be fleet of foot or someone who's attacking you off transition, but he's so good at like this one little quick burst or step gets him into a shooting position, and that's where he capitalizes. And when he's going, you really see that. What that's going to look like moving forward, I think, is a question someone's going to parse.

but he's going to have so much value. Not necessarily in this trade market because we typically don't see wingers, especially rental wingers, go for that much, right? You even think of a Tyler to Foley last year, right, when New Jersey traded him to Winnipeg and he went for like a second and a third or a second and a fourth or something like that. It's not necessarily some sort of premium assets. Yet on the market, it's relatively devoid of like proven scores,

especially guys who aren't already in their 30s, and he's a right shot finisher. and so a team like Tampa Bay who's all of a sudden going to have a bunch of caps base. That's exactly what they need, right? We just talked about New Jersey and how they could certainly use a trigger man on their top line. I'm sure they'd be interested.

There's so many teams that could use this particular skill set. The issue is the one that could also really use it as the one who currently has them. Yeah, the issue ultimately is I believe he's closer to a true talent, 25 to 30-ish-goal guy, but he's going to get paid closer to being, a 30 to 40 goal guy because that's the resume that he had last year.

And that discrepancy is ultimately concerning for me, especially because of, like, I wonder about do they have the right sentiment for him to play with? The Canucks don't have enough, like what they lack right now are dynamic drivers, guys who can really like hold onto the puck, make a lot of plays, demand the opposition's attention, which then facilitates and allows for more of your complimentary guys to fly under the radar and find those open pockets of space. So that's where I'm a little bit worried as far as aging. I'm not too concerned.

I know about, I know the foot speed isn't ideal, but I think he's such a smart player that he can work around that, especially when I see a lot of similarities to Tofoli, where neither one of them is very quick, but they're both really smart. as far as being able to read off elite players. They both have really good hands around the net.

They're both sort of, no one would describe them as, like, defensive guys, but they're responsible from a two-way perspective, and you can trust them in match-up minutes. Brock's also a proven playoff performer from last year. He's one of their best players there. So I don't worry that he's going to age horribly, provided that he stays relatively healthy. But for the other factors I mentioned earlier,

I still think it's a bit of a sketchy idea for the Canox of committing $8.5 million on a near-maxtrum deal. I was watching that game last night against the Kings. And first off, I mean, those two first two periods were like watching Paytry. I was like, God, I hope we never get a seven-game series of these two teams. They seem to bring out the worst of each other,

but it was also such a massive bag fumble by Jim Hiller because on my last show I was talking about how they stumbled upon this just like nuclear option all of a sudden where they put Kempe with Fiala and Byfield and just completely run Vegas out of the gym in the third period. They're unstoppable. And then sure enough, they start this game. And it's like, all right, we're going to go back to our regular lines. They go down 2-0. They have 12 shots in the first two periods. And then he's like, all right, I guess I'll try that thing again.

And then immediately they create a goal and look amazing and have a bunch of other chances. and I don't know why the Kings do that. I don't know why coaches do this, but man, like I just wanted to see more of those three guys and hopefully the way that game transpired is going to push them in that direction, but the first two periods were just a brutal watch. Oh, it was abysmal.

Like, if the Four Nations was the perfect product to entice a casual viewer to get into hockey, just slap on Kings Canucks as the exact opposite of, to give a casual sports fan, of never to watch hockey again. It was brutal, but you're right. The game completely flipped in the third when L.A. Put those three together, and they just feasted with their speed.

I mean, that Kempai goal was beautiful. I mean, they've played 15 minutes in these two games of 5-15 together, 10 scoring chances and three goals in that time. So I feel like that's something that works, and maybe they should do a little bit more. But hey, I'm not an NHL head coach. All right, Haram. Let's end the show with this.

I want to talk you wrote it recently. as I mentioned off the top, about the most improved players in the league this year. And it had guys like Marchenko, Protoos, Kuli, Natchez. It was my jam. I was loving it. You had Dylan Sandberg in there, and we referenced him earlier when we were talking about defense men and evaluating them. I got a couple of stats for you here on Dylan Sandberg.

With him on the ice this season, in terms of him being healthy, he had one game where he got hurt early on, so not including that one. The Jets are 3, 5, and 1, with a plus 63 gold. differential. 5-1-5 shares with him on the ice. Fifty-eight percent of the shots, 56 percent of high-danger chances, 62 percent of the goals. Expected goal share for the top two lines when they're on the ice with him. 61 percent for Sheifley's line drops down to 51 without him. Eelers' line, 60 percent, expected goal share, down to 47 percent.

After they re-uped Nemesnikov this week, there was a report that they're working on Neil Pionk next and getting his extension done because he's also a UFA this summer. We saw 480 minutes of Pionk without Sandberg this season when he was hurt. 44% shots, 43% expected goals, 42% chances. When they've been together as a pair, all those numbers are 59%. So I just painted you a picture of the importance and impact of this guy. He's a 26-year-old RFA. And I feel like the Jets have struck gold here because you look and it's like,

all right, he plays 21 minutes a game. He's got four goals and 13 points. we know that on the market these aren't the types of players that generally drive AAB right because they just don't have the counting stats necessarily to command top dollar and so I feel like this is a match made in heaven in terms of them being able to lock him up

for a figure that I'm immediately going to say is such a value compared to all the impacts I just provided what did you find on him when you were writing him up and kind of what you're seeing from him and sort of how we I guess quantify the impact of what I just said, a guy who isn't putting up a lot of points, isn't necessarily doing one thing at the top of the league, yet any way you slice it,

his impact is just immeasurable in this team. He's got a really well-rounded skill set where, I mean, he's got a big frame, he moves pretty well. He, I love his gap control, his stick is always disruptive. He's always in lanes, whether it's passing lanes, whether it's showing, shot lanes is a shot blocker. He's just constantly in the way. And what I really appreciate about his skill set too, especially seeing him a couple times this season,

is he doesn't take anything off the table offensively. That was an area where, like, I remember watching him in college at times and being like, okay, I expect him to be really effective from a shutdown defensive standpoint. But he's made a couple of really neat passes. Or I'm like, okay, he has the IQ with the puck too to ensure that when he is killing plays, when he is getting the puck back for his team,

that he's able to get it in the hands of forwards in productive areas of the ice and ensure that he's not a drag from that perspective because some defensive demon, they kill plays, but they can't make that play with the puck to ensure that the team can drive up the ice. And then that's what I was referring to earlier when I said,

like the best defenseman can do a little bit of everything. When you look at the best defensive Dman, whether it's Slavin, whether it's like Tanev, Samberg, you know, trending in that type of direction if he keeps this up, they, like, they have all the good stuff defensively, but they also have, they also have enough, like, vision and enough, like, heads up IQ and enough pox skills to make sure that they're contributing in that aspect, too. And that stands out with Sandberg's profile is the defensive metrics look great, but quietly his the Jets are still creating a ton of offense

when he's on the ice too yeah they've had two kind of primetime island games this week right on Monday and Wednesday very light NHL schedule they were the only game on at the time the first one was the Amazon Prime game against the Sharks and then on Wednesday night they played in Ottawa banged up senators team

but you can see why he's so effective in those games and I'm really glad you brought that up because I think what makes this Jets team so special and I've been talking a lot about the benefit of continuity for them and how long this group's been together and all that. They're so clean and kind of precise and quick in the way they move the puck, and it's a lot of short quick passes in all three zones.

And he fits so well as kind of a connective to shoot for that, right? Where it's not necessarily the play that's going to create the goal because I just said he only has, whatever, 10, 15 assists or so. But he's making so many of those plays that then advance them on the ice. territorially to be able to then allow their forwards to attack, right? And so quick little outlets in the offensive zone, not like spamming point shots, but working it back down low so that a guy like Valardi can kind of work around the net, just little stuff like that.

And yeah, I think connective tissue is I think my favorite way of framing everything he's doing for the Jets. The other guy I want to talk to you about. I've spent so much time talking with the Blue Jackets this year on the show. And a lot of the focus has, I think, understandably been directed towards Marchenko, Varanca, that top line, Werenzky, certainly, yet Kent Johnson is having a phenomenal season. And you wrote about him, and I want to talk more about him,

because he's become so fun to watch. Everything that he was billed as a prospect, right? Kind of like the ambitious creativity, the puck handling, and how he just has it on a string and he can do all this stuff. I think it took him a while to figure that out at the NHL level because of the pace and some of the roadblocks you bump into, but it feels like he's put it all. all together this year and he's just been so, so productive, especially at 5-1-5.

He's magician-like. He's a playmaking machine. And what I love about a skill set is any skilled prospect who maybe isn't the fastest player in a straight line should be watching KJ tape nonstop because he puts on a master class of, like I know he's gotten faster in a straight line a little bit more explosive with this acceleration, but he's not a burner in a straight line necessarily, but when you watch him play, the reason that he's able to drive so many zone entries and why he's responsible for the top units, like he's the one that gets a drop pass and is trusted to sort of carve through

the neutral zone and get their power play set up is, like, he's got this combination of, like, the mesmerizing quick stick handling, but also he is so smart deceptively. Like when you watch his entries a lot of times in 5 and 4 situations he'll be skating it up and he'll turn his head as if he's going to kick it out to the flank and that freezes the defender for a second so

the defender doesn't gap up as aggressively and then Johnson's flight path when he is carrying the puck it's not that he like attacks in a straight line which is predictable he kind of like slaloms in and out of different pockets of space which he's able

to do because you know in part his stick handling is so good and tight quarters but it's that combination of like the IQ the creativity like how shifty he is that allows him to make such an impact um as uh as his own entry machine and and that also powers as his playmaking which is huge and we know he is a great pass-vers player but to also see his evolution as a lethal mid-range shooting threat has been uh has been impressive i mean a couple times i've seen his one time where i've been like how's the guy who's built like that, firing rockets like that. But also then, especially in 5-15 situations, from mid-range,

it's how he's able to use his hands to manipulate and create shot lanes where normally a defender against most top six NHL players would be able to block that shot. He's so good at using his hands to create little pockets of space where there shouldn't be time and space. Yeah, I think the best example of that was one of the most. recent goals he scored over the weekend against the Blackhawks, right? Oh, yeah. He's coming in. I think they create a little turnover off the forecheck.

He jumps in with speed, and then he like drags the puck in, changes the lane a little bit, and then goes just in that money spot above the pad below the blocker. And it's like, if you're going to hit that mark, it's going to be pretty impossible for goalies to stop that. And he's found a real rhythm with that. I mean, you mentioned the playmaking. He's got 15-5-on-5 goals. This year on a permanent basis, only Tage Thompson and Alex Ovechkin. are scoring more often than him. He's on pace, on an 82 game pace, because he missed some time

there at the start for 35 goals and 73 points. So he's been awesome. It's been really, it's been really fun to kind of watch him put it all together because you could obviously see the potential and everything he was built at, but he's doing it. And now all of a sudden you look, he's making $1.8 million for the next two years, presenting one of the best values along with Marchenko, certainly for the Blue Jackets. And also another guy who, by the way, his ice time last year, 1332 per game, up to 1728. this year. So you talk about the impact of coaching and him being another one of these beneficiaries for the Blue Jackets of the Pascal Vincent to Dean Eveson bump. So yeah, he's been phenomenal. He's

doing it and not playing with Marchenko and Fantili and Varancah, right? Like he's doing it playing with Cillinger and Van Rimsdike and Del Balloos and some of these more sort of depth options for the Blue Jackets and yet still driving offensive 515 the way that he has. It's really cool. He and the Blue Jackets, I just have so much fun watching Columbus play. And yeah, they're a little bit messy defensively at times, but man, they're so explosive, so dynamic offensively. Their clow up this season has been incredible. You can still get them at plus $3.50 or so to make the playoffs.

And I know it's tight there with a bunch of those teams. They have a couple of games head to head against the Red Wings here, including the stadium series game. But, man, they're going to be fun. At home, too, they're just an entirely different breed. It makes sense for a young team, but they clearly have a home ice advantage in watching them at nationwide is really fun. All right, Harm, that's all the time that we have for today.

We're going to get out of here. I'll let you plug some stuff. Let the listeners know about this piece that we briefly talked about. I don't think we gave too much away. You wrote about a bunch of other guys. Maybe Edmonton Oilers fans shouldn't read your piece on most improved players because their former guys feature pretty prominently in it. But let the listeners know about that and what else they can expect from you during this

busy time with the NHL schedule. Yeah, I did a huge deep dive on 10 most improved players. over at the athletic and just today as well. I did a piece breaking down the numbers of how every team's first line has performed and there were a ton of cool nuggets from... What was the most surprising one for you? Ooh, I'll stop my head. It was interesting.

I hadn't realized that, and I don't think it's necessarily like the skaters' fault, but to see that Carolina's first line had the worst goal differential. Again, most of that is just the goaltending and they haven't gone the balances. Well, Sebastian Aalho has had a strange season. You saw that at Four Nations as well, where he's just, he hasn't played up to his capability from years past. Yeah, so it's a bit of both. And that's where, like, I'm so intrigued to see how Aho and Rantan are able to perform and potentially figure things out down the stretch.

Because, yeah, it was, I didn't expect to see Carolina 32nd as far as their first lines, goal differential. Yeah. All right, buddy. Well, good stuff. Keep up the great work. We're going to have you on again soon, I'm sure. Everyone go if you join today's show, smash the five-star button, leave us a nice little review wherever you listen. Join us in the PDOCAST Discord as well.

Took some questions from there today. We'll continue to do so moving forward. And that is all from us here for now. We've got one more show to close out the week. Thank you for listening to the HockeyPEDO cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.